Openness and Foreign Policy Reform in Communist States

OPENNESS AND FOREIGN POLICY REFORM IN COMMUNIST STATES THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS The Royal Instit...

Author: Gerald Segal

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OPENNESS AND FOREIGN POLICY REFORM IN COMMUNIST STATES

THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

The Royal Institute of International Affairs is an independent body which promotes the rigorous study of international questions and does not express opinions of its own. The opinions expressed in this publication are the responsibility of the authors.

OPENNESS AND FOREIGN POLICY REFORM IN COMMUNIST STATES Gerald Segal With Judy Batt, Barry Buzan, Peter J.S.Duncan, David S.G.Goodman, Adrian Hyde-Price, Margot Light, John Phipps, Michael C.Williams and Brantly Womack

London and New York for THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

First published 1992 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge a division of Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc. 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1992 Royal Institute of International Affairs All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0-203-99237-7 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-415-08275-7 (Print Edition) Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Segal, Gerald, 1953– Openness and Foreign Policy Reform in Communist States/Gerald Segal; with Judy Batt et al. [Published] for the Royal Institute of International Affairs Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 0-415-08275-7 1. Communist countries—Foreign relations 2. Glasnost I. Royal Institute of International Affairs II. Title D850.S44 1992 327 .091717–dc20

CONTENTS

List of contributors

vi

Preface

vii

INTRODUCTION: DEFINING REFORM AS OPENNESS Barry Buzan and Gerald Segal

1

1

FOREIGN ECONOMIC POLICY Gerald Segal

19

2

DEFENCE AND SECURITY POLICY Gerald Segal

61

3

CULTURE AND COMMUNICATIONS POLICY Judy Batt, Peter J.S.Duncan, David S.G.Goodman, Adrian HydePrice, Gerald Segal and Michael C.Williams

111

4

FOREIGN POLICY IDEOLOGY Judy Batt, Margot Light, Adrian Hyde-Price, Gerald Segal and Brantly Womack

175

Notes

221

Index

245

CONTRIBUTORS

Judy Batt Barry Buzan Peter J.S.Duncan

University of Birmingham University of Warwick School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London David S.G.Goodman Murdoch University, Western Australia Adrian Hyde-Price University of Southampton Margot Light London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London John Phipps BBC World Service, London Gerald Segal International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, and formerly Royal Institute of International Affairs, London Michael C.Williams BBC Monitoring, Caversham Park, Reading Brantly Womack University of Northern Illinois, USA

PREFACE

The improbable task of producing a comparative study of foreign policy reform in communist states was conceived with the assistance of Alex Pravda in 1988 while he was director of the Soviet Foreign Policy Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Our intention was to focus not only on the issue of foreign policy reform, but also on the vexed problem of the linkage between domestic and foreign policy. The fact that we agreed to a comparative project covering three East European and three East Asian states was testament to our ambition and our foolishness. To make matters even more complicated, when substantive work began in 1989 the events in China and Eastern Europe changed essential features of the study. By the week of 19 August 1991, when delivery of a final manuscript was scheduled, the abortive coup in the Soviet Union initially put the project in jeopardy and then allowed us to refine it. The ‘Second Russian Revolution’ certainly drew the line between the Asian and European experience even more sharply. With the death of Communist Party states in Europe by the end of 1991, it was clear that at least for our European cases, this study was more about history than current concerns. Nevertheless, an understanding of the transition from Communism requires a full understanding of why reforms succeeded and failed. Work on this project was part of a larger study on reform in communist states undertaken in association with the Wilson Center in Washington and a group of Japanese specialists on East Asia and Eastern Europe. While the work at Chatham House focused on foreign policy issues, the broader study has produced, or is in the process of producing, four books: a study of Soviet reforms, a study of Chinese reforms, and two comparative volumes covering several East European and East Asian cases.1 There has also been additional, more detailed, work at the RIIA on various aspects of reform covered in the comparative volumes, some of which involves contributors to this study on openness.2 Needless to say, our wide-ranging task in all the comparative work has benefited from the cross-fertilization of all these projects.

viii

In undertaking the study of openness we eventually decided that the best way to undertake serious comparative work of this kind was to commission research papers from experts and then to have one person meld them into a single piece of analysis. In applying this process, which is neither authorship nor editorship as usually conceived, we hope to have achieved both detail and genuine comparison. Draft chapters were supplied by the following team of authors: Introduction ‘Defining Reform as Openness’, Barry Buzan and Gerald Segal; Chapter 1, ‘Foreign Economic Policy’, Gerald Segal; Chapter 2, ‘Defence Policy Reform’, Gerald Segal; Chapter 3, ‘Culture and Communications Policy’, Judy Batt, Peter J.S.Duncan, David S.G.Goodman, Adrian Hyde-Price and Michael Williams; and Chapter 4, ‘Foreign Policy Ideology’, Judy Batt, Adrian Hyde-Price, Margot Light and Brantly Womack. It was decided that it would be more honest not to have a concluding chapter, since in a work of this nature conclusions are bound to be strained. We trust that the introductory chapter, by drawing together the main themes, provides the necessary framework. All chapters have been through several drafts and various study groups and I am grateful to those who gave their time and expertise to write the first drafts and then to comment on subsequent re-drafts. Several people, notably Brian Bridges, Edwina Moreton, Paul Lewis and Elizabeth Teague, who did not themselves write drafts, provided valuable comments. But the greatest debt of gratitude is owed to Neil Malcolm, who, as Alex Pravda’s successor as head of the Soviet Foreign Policy Programme, assumed the greatest burden in helping shape the project. Peter Ferdinand, as head of the Asia/Pacific Programme, helped ensure the work did not become too Eurocentric. Special thanks are also owed to two research fellows at the RIIA, Judy Batt and John Phipps, who, in addition to writing draft papers for the project, took part in a number of the related activities. Finally, any such complex effort requires effective administrative support. Shyama Iyer, the administrative assistant for the Soviet Foreign Policy Programme, not only provided essential continuity in the project, but also ensured disks, documents and authors were kept in good order. The Soviet Foreign Policy Programme is funded by the ESRC (grant no. E OO 22 2011). The project on reform in communist states was supported by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. September 1991

Gerald Segal

INTRODUCTION: DEFINING REFORM AS OPENNESS Barry Buzan and Gerald Segal

This project seeks to explain why and how communist states reform their foreign policy. We are particularly concerned with the linkage between domestic and foreign policy reforms and as a consequence have chosen to define reform as ‘openness’, a term that can be applied to both domestic and foreign policy. Reform can be understood in wider terms than openness, but given the specific nature of the recent reforms in communist states, we have chosen to emphasize this aspect of reform. In the past, communist states have been archetypes of closure, featuring rigid border control, tight and centralized internal control over civil society, mercantilist economies, and high levels of militarization. When used by reformers in the Soviet Union, the term glasnost was seen as a key feature of the reforms. Chinese officials speak of ‘opening to the outside world’.1 Debates within communist states about the virtues of openness have been fierce, if only because such reform goes to the heart of what made these regimes distinctive in the first place. But debates about openness also concern noncommunist states, for the issue of how interdependent a state should be with others is central to the strategy of development and prosperity. Although the discussion in the following pages relates to communist states, it is hoped that the analysis will also be relevant to a wider range of countries. It should also be noted that the challenge of openness was faced by many states, including some that eventually became communist states, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In some cases, such as that of China, Communist Party rule was the eventual response to the earlier challenge and thus when, in the late twentieth century, the time came to open the communist state, it was often a matter as much of opening a more deep-rooted traditional political system as of opening a communist state. The questions raised in debates about openness in communist states are clearly complex, but there are certain important issues which recur throughout the analysis. First, is there a single strategy, or path, leading to openness? There is a view, which obtained particular support after the East European revolutions of 1989, which suggests that ultimately all reform was fruitless and only revolution could solve the problems of communist states. Inherent in this judgement was the

2 INTRODUCTION: DEFINING REFORM AS OPENNESS

view that although there might be more than one path to this ‘second revolution’, ultimately all paths converged at the exit from Communist Party rule. Second, is there a necessary linkage between aspects of reform, for example between economic and political reform? Again, the post-1989 argument suggests that all reform must eventually converge in revolution. Without giving away too much at this stage, it is the conclusion of this study that—at least on the question of foreign policy reform—there is no single model of reform. Nor is there any necessary, let alone sufficient, link between aspects of reform, or between reform of foreign policy and reform of domestic policy. The lengthy process of comparison that follows does not reveal neat theories or even clear stages of reform. But the process of comparison has proved vital in identifying the key features of reform in each state and the complex way in which internal and external policies interact. Size, culture, level of development and position in the international system are among the many crucial factors producing major differences between states. The different experience of Europeans and East Asians is one of the most significant fault-lines in our analysis, a fact made all the more salient now that communist regimes no longer exist in Europe but continue to reform in East Asia. It may be that just as East Asia has proved to be the junkyard for all sorts of mid-Atlantic theories of market economics, so will it be the junkyard for Eurocentric views of Communist Party politics. Needless to say, this is a controversial conclusion, and one that is not shared by all those who contributed to this project. DEFINING TERMS In the West, openness is an analytical concept with an unhappy record in past unsuccessful attempts to formulate theory on comparative foreign policymaking.2 Openness (or closure) is a characteristic of political units, usually states, and refers to the nature of their relationships with the external world. A state is externally open if its boundaries are permeable to both inward and outward flows of goods, money, people, information, transnational organizations, and ideas. These flows do not have to be totally unrestricted (if they were, the unit would cease to exist), but they must be substantial and wideranging. Outward flows only (such as propaganda broadcasts), or highly restricted exchanges (such as mercantilist trade), do not constitute openness. Inward flows are a stronger indicator of openness, but a state is not truly open unless there is a broad spectrum of exchange and a willingness to allow outside organizations such as media and multinational firms to operate within the state. External openness is often strongly associated with internal openness. A state is internally open to the extent that individuals and organizations are allowed to operate independently from government and information is allowed to circulate more or less freely to all parts of society. In an internally open state, government

INTRODUCTION: DEFINING REFORM AS OPENNESS 3

plays a regulatory rather than a controlling role in most areas of social, economic and political activity. Both internal and external openness are often used normatively to suggest that a market economy, a pluralist political system or an international market economy is a better system. To the extent that we see openness as a reform (as opposed to mere change), we implicitly share that judgement.3 However, here we are primarily concerned with openness as a descriptive term, although we are aware that the term can be used as a prescription or as an explanation. It should be made clear that openness is not merely a single condition—it can also be used to describe degrees of openness—and several states have apparently decided that it is best if they remain not quite as open as other states. Thus Japan and Britain have different types of market economies, pluralist political systems and operate differently in the international market economy; they are thus different kinds of relatively open states. In the anarchic international system, openness can be understood in terms of the policies of states, but it can also be increasingly understood in terms of the interaction between non-state actors. In a world of complex interdependence where some 50 per cent of trade among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) states takes place within multinational firms, it makes sense to understand openness as something more complex than a feature of the interaction of states. Some have spoken of the trend towards the ‘emancipation’ of the individual as an international actor—a development that closely links openness within and outside states. Our analysis is therefore concerned with interdependence and international integration at various levels of international relations.4 Given the complexity of factors that make up openness, it is impossible to identify necessary links between all forms of internal and external openness. Yet it is often true that internal and external openness are mutually supporting. In a liberal state, the domestic political structure is defined by the relative autonomy of actors from the government. As a consequence, liberal states make possible an open international system in which transnational organizations can operate relatively freely without having their activities defined as threats to national security. Unless states are liberal, there can be no international market. The link between internal and external openness becomes clearer if openness is understood in terms of tolerance of intervention. Most states will define military attack as intervention because the foundation of sovereign existence is threatened. However, more open states will be more broadly tolerant of intervention from abroad in the societal and economic sectors. External openness will often be supported by the relative autonomy of the internal economic and societal sectors. The state will not be inclined to define economic and social interaction as intervention and will tend not to see it as a security threat. Nevertheless, it is quite possible for states to be internally open and externally


closed, especially during times of international tension. The opposite combination of internal closure and external openness is less likely, though there may well be specific features of external openness despite a mostly closed internal system, as for example in the case of China’s use of Special Economic Zones (SEZ). Since internal closure is associated with centralized government control in most sectors, external openness easily threatens such control. Comparative foreign policy theorists have tried to use the distinction between open and closed systems in conjunction with other fundamental characteristics (large or small, developed and developing) as a way of constructing a basic typology of states. However, these variables interact with each other in a way that spoils any such scheme as a tool for policy analysis. Moreover, they take no account of the different cultural base of states, for as we have seen in the East Asian variant of capitalism, a more authoritarian political culture helps to shape a different model of development. Large states such as China might find it easier to remain closed as they will suffer fewer diseconomies of scale and are better able to supply their own needs. However, by virtue of their size these states are also able to tolerate greater openness in parts of their state (e.g. in Special Economic Zones), without feeling that their entire system is under threat. On the question of relative levels of development, it seems clear that higher levels of development increase demand for wider ranges of contact and exchange and tend to work against closed policies. It might be argued that communist states need to be more externally closed than pluralist/market states. But this only seems so true when, as in the Cold War world, the communist states lived in an international system dominated by the ideologically hostile capitalist states. Under such conditions, openness would have endangered their domestic political structure. If the communist states had dominated the international system, it might have been incorrect to describe them as closed. Their internal characteristics of centralized control might still have been mostly closed, but the less threatening pattern of relations in the system as a whole could have pulled them towards a higher degree of openness. Even in a capitalist-dominated system, some of the more confident communist states of today, such as China, do not necessarily see a contradiction between relative closure at home and increasing openness in external policies, when détente is strong. In order to use the idea of openness as a definition of reform in the foreign policy of communist states it is useful not only to retain a clear sense of the distinction between internal and external openness, but also to specify operational criteria for openness across four key sectors: economic, military, political and societal. The possibility of disharmony between internal and external openness, and between different aspects of openness, needs to be kept in mind when applying criteria to cases.


Similarly, it is necessary to keep distinct those things that define openness and those that are a consequence of it. For example, at its most basic openness is a relative condition. In a country that is said to be relatively open to trade the actual level of trade depends on a wide range of factors, including the geopolitics of the state, its level of development, or its size. We are concerned with both the condition of openness (such as the right of citizens to travel abroad) and why that right may or may not be used (what are the actual flows of travellers?). The specific features of basic openness can be described as follows: Economic sector Internal openness implies an economy based on private property and a market economy. But as suggested by the phrase ‘mixed economy’, there is no specific level of either private ownership or market mechanisms that defines an open economy. In reality, openness and closedness define the ends of a spectrum. Pure cases at either extreme rarely exist, and the objective is to locate where (and with what mix) individual cases are located on the spectrum. For example, the open economies in Western Europe encompass a wide range of types of openness, from liberal Britain to social democratic Sweden. The open economies of Japan or the East Asian newly industrialized countries (NICs) tend more towards the middle of the spectrum, having more ‘corporatist’ economies and an ‘economic culture’ of consensus that manages the more market-driven economy. External openness is intended to increase prosperity through wider interoperability with the international economy. The state, its people and organizations participate in the international division of labour and they do not see relatively free economic exchange as a threat to national security. A state’s currency is freely exchangeable, legal, statistical and banking practices are in line with the international norms and principles established by international organizations, and trade practices operate within similar international norms, such as those of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Trade flows and foreign direct investment (FDI) will tend to increase as the state grows more open. Political sector Internal openness implies ideological pluralism, usually manifested in numerous political parties representing a variety of ideologies. This system is usually legally protected. Elections at all levels are held regularly and based on universal adult franchise. Political information is widely available. Such pluralism need not necessarily result in changes of government, and in systems where no such change takes place over long periods of time, power may well be gathered in one party or group of decision-makers. Where this coincides with a political culture


of consensus politics and less resort to law to settle disputes, the system may appear to have elements of closure. External openness implies wider freedom through a relatively free flow of political ideas, people and interaction of organizations. Resulting transnational political networks are not seen as threatening to national security. Military and security sector Internal openness implies a clear separation of military and political authority, where the armed forces are accountable to the authorities elected in an open political system. A corollary of this separation is likely to be greater professionalism of the armed forces. There will usually be a relatively clear separation between military and economic activity in that the military will not directly own or control large sectors of the civil economy, and will not provide labour for regular tasks such as harvesting. Conscription may be used by either open or closed states, and is not an indicator in either direction. External openness implies enhancing security through more transparent and interdependent military policies. One key to this is a willingness to participate in inspected arms control, and more generally to provide accurate information about the finance, manpower and equipment of the armed forces. Another is a willingness to enter into collaborative reassurance policies with rivals. An example of this can be seen in the difference between a policy of mutually assured destruction (open), which involves leaving oneself vulnerable to attack by one’s rival, and strategic defence (closed), which seeks to deny one’s rival that possibility. Militarily open states might also be expected to participate in global (or possibly regionally) sanctioned collective security activities, and to refrain from military ventures beyond their frontiers except those sanctioned by international organisations. Societal and cultural sector Internal openness implies relatively few restrictions on the freedom to travel, communicate and congregate. A free press, racial and sexual equality of opportunity are usually key features of an open society and are usually protected by law. External openness implies a free social exchange that is not defined as threatening to national security. This will tend to mean relatively few restrictions on the right to travel abroad and the ability of others to visit the state and travel freely within it. It is also likely that there will be relatively few restrictions on access to foreign media and culture. And yet culture is culture in part because it remains different from another culture, and thus to some extent remains closed.


This brief sketch of key features of internal and external openness across four sectors suggests that the full picture is rather complex. Moreover, in any given case, a state may be located at different points on the open-closed spectrum not only for the four sectors, but also on the internal and external dimensions within each sector. What determines the location of any given state at any particular point on the spectrum will be a mixture of open and closed characteristics unique to that state. These unique mixtures can be traced to a wide range of factors such as size, level of development, cultural traditions, ideology, historical experience and the like. This complexity makes it impossible to use a scheme such as the one proposed here in any systematic or scientific way. Because both measurement and comparability are imprecise, prediction and defining causal relations are impossible, and even comparison is risky. There is also the problem of a dynamic relationship between aspects of reform, let alone between states and individuals. The feedback effect, as well as the other difficulties already mentioned, makes it impossible to identify what some might call ‘stages of reform’. To be sure, there are some commonalities in that reform often begins slowly and certain initial steps tend to elicit specific reactions both within the state and from the international system, but as soon as the process of reaction gets underway, the variation in behaviour makes it unhelpful to search for any further identifiable stages. And yet, this is not to say that the task of comparing types of openness is in itself unhelpful. What this scheme does enable us to do is to differentiate between and describe the reform process in different states. In particular, it makes it possible to investigate the interplay between open and closed elements in any given state. This is especially useful in looking at states moving from high, across-the-board policies of closure towards more open policies. In which sectors do such states attempt to open, and where are they most sensitive? Can openness be pursued in one sector (e.g. economic) or one dimension (e.g. external) alone, or does openness in one create pressure to open others? How far can opening go without threatening the basic structure of closure and so triggering a transformation of the state such as happened in Eastern Europe during 1989 and the Soviet Union in 1991? Are there particular forms of opening that are more sustainable for closed states than others? Can states move smoothly across the spectrum from closed to open, or are there hidden hurdles that block such options? These are the questions that a definition of reform as openness enables us to address to the case of the communist, and ex-communist states.


COUNTRIES AND CONCLUSIONS This study focuses on six countries—the Soviet Union, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), China, Vietnam and the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (PDRK). We chose China and the Soviet Union as the most powerful communist states. Hungary was the most advanced in many aspects of reform, and especially in domestic reform and Vietnam was an Asian communist state that came to reform later than China. The GDR and the PDRK were chosen because they were special cases of divided states and to some extent shared the position of unreformed states, although the PDRK was far more extreme. We could have chosen other states, particularly in Eastern Europe or even Cuba, but the mundane problems of managing material had to be considered at some stage. As will soon become evident, even this small selection of states proved difficult to manage, but we felt it important to do more than the usual comparison of two states, usually China and the Soviet Union, for a number of reasons. We were interested in differences between states of differing geopolitical and cultural backgrounds and we were interested in reforms that took place at different times and under different international conditions. Although we began this project intending to follow all six countries into the 1990s, we were ‘fortunate’ enough to find that some states had a revolution and abandoned Communist Party rule entirely.5 Thus we need to explain the period covered in this study, keeping in mind that we are primarily interested in foreign policy reform. In the case of Hungary we are mainly concerned with the 1970s and 1980s until the revolution of 1989. In the case of the GDR we look at a similar period but with the knowledge that there were far fewer reforms. In the case of the Soviet Union we are primarily interested in the 1980s, and especially the latter half. By late 1990 there was significant back-tracking on reform, but by the time we closed this study in September 1991, a revolution had taken the Soviet Union beyond Communist Party rule. North Korea has had no significant reform in any period and it is used in this study more as a ‘control case’. Vietnamese reforms have been most evident since the latter half of the 1980s. Chinese reforms are usually dated from late 1978, but in foreign policy terms there was a great deal of foreign policy reform in the 1970s before the major era of domestic reform. Even this brief review of the complex question of the period of reform to be examined in each state should suggest the difficulty in comparing our selected states. It should also be clear that the four main aspects of openness— economics, military security, politics, culture and society—are not easily compared. As we have already suggested, this is a particular problem when looking at openness in military security. What is more, in the detailed analysis that follows, we have not always been able to assess the information according to the definition of openness already outlined. While there is a relatively neat fit in the sections on economic and


military security, openness in political and societal terms has been largely treated in one section on culture and communications. This has been done in order to highlight the connections between political culture and political systems. It is a recurring theme in the study that the specific traditions and conditions of each state have been vital factors in shaping the distinctive approaches to openness. The final section on ideology can be read as a form of concluding chapter. Because the reforms outlined in the three preceding sections have all been connected to reform of ideology, a separate section which attempts to relate the connecting aspects of ideology should also help to organize more general assessments about the evolution of openness. Such complexity of analysis is determined by the complexity of the subject. In each of the four main sections there are detailed comparisons of various aspects of reform, but it is useful to reiterate some of the broader conclusions in order to provide a context for the more detailed analysis. To begin with, there is clearly a vast range of types of openness. Thus each state emerges as a unique case, and as we shall soon outline, there is no necessary connection between, for example, openness in defence policy and openness in foreign economic policy. There is even a wide range of openness to, for example, FDI, an issue entirely within the single category of foreign economic policy. In fact the Chinese case demonstrates both these points quite clearly, and it even demonstrates that domestic and foreign policy reform need not go together. Observers of Chinese foreign policy have been struck by the fact that China’s opening to the West began under Mao in the early 1970s and the opening to the Soviet Union followed a domestic reform that was marked by a sharp move away from socialism in many aspects of economic policy at home. This list of negative conclusions about a single approach to openness is more fully substantiated by the identification of specific features of the reforms in the individual sections that follow. However, because the rest of this study is comparative, it might be useful to draw a few brief country studies to illustrate the theme of unique case studies in openness. The Soviet Union By choosing the term openness to define reform we might be accused of a Soviet studies bias in this project, for the use of the term says a great deal about its popularity in the Gorbachev era. Indeed, the Soviet case is also pivotal because, as a superpower, it had a major impact on the course of reform in other states. It was Soviet ‘permission’ that allowed Hungary and the GDR to find their own future and it was Soviet pressure that encouraged Vietnam to do the same. The Soviet example was more negative in the Chinese and North Korean cases, but it is fair to say that no matter what happened to reform in the Soviet Union, the fate of the ‘motherland’ of the revolution was important to all.


In the period before August 1991 foreign economic policy had perhaps changed less than any other aspect of foreign policy, despite the rhetoric of openness to international investment, wider trade and greater participation in the international market economy. When compared to China, the failure to reform foreign economic policy in the Soviet Union seems remarkable, until it is recognized that the structure of Soviet foreign trade depended so much on export of resources and the failure of domestic economic reforms provided little real incentive for foreign investors. What made this failure to reform foreign economic policy all the more striking was the fact that nearly every other major dimension of foreign policy had opened a great deal. Nowhere was this better seen than in defence policy, where the Soviet Union undertook a whole range of reforms that accepted greater interdependence of security, although some of these reforms were evident in the Brezhnev era of East-West détente. It was also apparent in the reform of patterns of communication with the outside world as the political environment within the Soviet Union was liberalized. All these were connected by real reform of Soviet foreign policy ideology. The difference between foreign economic policy and all the areas where reform took place was accounted for by the specific problems of the structure of Soviet foreign trade, powerful internal resistance to economic reform, and the fact that the Soviet Union was still viewed with suspicion by an international system that was used to dealing with a Soviet superpower. After the complete disintegration of the Union the transformation will, in many ways, be more sweeping than anything else in the former communist world. As in the Chinese case, reform of communism is only part of a much more complex story which also requires the opening up of the pre-communist political traditions. China As the Soviet Union let the ‘red flag’ slip, Chinese communists claim they will not abandon socialism. It may well be that China will be the longest-surviving communist state, but in order for that to happen, it will also have evolved a distinctive form of reform. The jury is still out on whether China can sustain economic reform without far-reaching political reform, but the simple assertion of some Europeans that you cannot have one without the other does not seem to be substantiated by the Chinese case, at least so far. And because China has managed real economic reform, it has also managed far more reform of its foreign economic policy than any other communist party state. China’s distinctive approach to regionalism, its pragmatic economic culture, its sensible economic policies and its use of overseas Chinese have all helped make success in this realm possible. But, compared with the Soviet Union, China has been far less distinctive in its ability to open up to the outside world in other respects. In large part because of


the limited nature of political reform in China, some reforms in culture and communication policy have not been as fully developed. China’s cultural traditions suggest that even as communism is opened up, there are deeper roots of a Sinocentrism that often makes China reluctant to open up to the international system. In any case, the very demography of China with its huge, poor peasant population, will always make it different from the Soviet Union. As the more limited reforms in Chinese foreign policy ideology suggest, China is less prepared to abandon what it calls ‘socialist principles’ at home, although it claims this has little relevance for a foreign policy based on the five principles of peaceful coexistence. Nevertheless, it is clear that China’s approach to defence policy has been to accept far less interdependence than the Soviet Union. China in the 1990s is more like the Soviet Union in the 1950s, in that it still seeks to change the international status quo in a more comprehensive way. Thus China emerges as a more mercantile great power with important elements of openness in its foreign policy, but implemented in a pragmatic way. Of course, for China to admit to being a unique great power would merely be in keeping with its historical tradition. Vietnam The Vietnamese party was the only other Communist Party to make its own revolution and it was the only party that has burnished its legitimacy through wars with various great powers. But if only because of its geography and place in the international system, Vietnam remained more vulnerable than China and the Soviet Union to pressures from the outside. When China and then the Soviet Union reformed their domestic and foreign policies, Vietnam had to adopt its own reforms, although not those dictated in Peking or Moscow. The result has been a reform of foreign policy that looks most like the Chinese case, but with important variations. Like China, Vietnam has made important strides in reforming its foreign economic policy. Like China, regionalism and overseas communities have been helpful in shaping a more pragmatic reaction to the international economy. But unlike China, Vietnam was pinned down by an American boycott and a reluctance to capitulate entirely to China over Cambodia. Defence policy has been reformed far more than in the Chinese case, but then Vietnam is simply too weak to stand up entirely on its own when all the great powers want reform. Like China, Vietnamese domestic politics have not been reformed as much as domestic economics, and thus Vietnam is reluctant to abandon Communist Party rule. This has helped to place limits on reform of foreign policy ideology and culture and communication policy. Vietnam may well hang on like China, with a reformed Communist Party in power, in part sustained by an ability to


manipulate market reforms that include a significant degree of opening up to the international economy. Hungary Hungary was long seen as the best hope for reform in the communist world and the failure of reform there has been taken as evidence that nothing short of revolution will do. However, throughout its period of reform, Hungary was always a special case. Hungary had little that could be called a distinct state tradition, being so closely connected with the history of the much larger AustroHungarian empire. Most importantly, Hungary learned the lesson of 1956 that it was under the ultimate control of the Soviet Union. Thus all the reform, whether in ideology, foreign economic policy, or culture and communication, was constrained by the Soviet Union. For that reason there was never any significant defence policy reform. In essence, the Hungarians were never really allowed to see how far their reforms could go. By the last half of the 1980s the Soviet Union had gradually lifted all the barriers to reform. For a time, Hungary was constrained by decades of entrenched self-control and a leadership that had too much stake in the old order. When Hungary finally realized that not only the door to real reform was open, but they could go all the way to revolution, Hungarians dashed for the exit in 1989. Divided countries: the GDR and North Korea As we slip further down the list of communist states who reformed their foreign policy, we come to the divided countries of Germany and Korea. Although in some respects it is useful to see these states as similar, their post-war history often demonstrates major divergences. In neither the GDR nor North Korea was there any long-lasting foreign policy reform, although the German case showed some signs of openness for a time. In both divided countries the key dimension of policy was the fact that they were front-line states in the Cold War and their existence was integrally tied up with their ability to maintain a firm line against their compatriots across the Cold War line. The GDR had sought to fend off the embrace of West Germany by stressing its firm commitment to communist rule and socialist ideology. Thus even reforming Soviet leaders often found the GDR was even more opposed to openness than they were. But when East-West relations deteriorated too badly, the GDR feared the loss of benefits that came from their lucrative relationship with West Germany and for a time sought a bit more freedom of manoeuvre in the 1980s. Of course, Gorbachev-style reforms were too much for East Germany to bear, and the lid was quickly replaced on reform. When the Soviet Union finally made it clear that it would not keep the


East Europeans locked into a close alliance, the people of East Germany seized the initiative and demonstrated their desire to join a united Germany. Even though the Soviet Union had not envisaged such an outcome, by the time they could see what was happening, they were unable to stop the process without undoing so much else of the Soviet Union’s own reform programme. If the Soviet Union did not always control the pace of change in the GDR, it was even less successful in the case of North Korea, albeit in a very different way. In the North Korean case, the Soviet Union wanted Pyongyang to reform but the Kim Il Sung clan refused. This was not for the old reason that North Korea was able to play off China against the Soviet Union, because China also wanted to see some reform in North Korea. However, it is true that the long-term rivalry between China and the Soviet Union over North Korea helped to ensure that Pyongyang was less controlled by Moscow (compare it to the Mongolian case). North Korea was always far more closed to the West than the GDR, and in any case the parts of the West that it faced in East Asia pursued different economic and political strategies than those in the mid-Atlantic community. It could be argued that at least until 1990, North Korea faced less pressure from its regional environment to reform than the GDR, which was very much in the spotlight of German and hence West European politics. Thus the peculiar domestic politics of North Korea, coupled with its special place in the international system, allowed it to take a different view of reform in the communist world. While there might be serious doubt about whether North Korea can avoid a GDR-like fate at the time of the succession to Kim Il Sung, there can be little doubt that so far North Korea has managed to stick to a route of its own. If it collapses into the embrace of South Korea later in the 1990s, it will not be, as was the case in the GDR, because the Soviet Union was holding them back for so long. The transformation in North Korea will be as distinctive as it was in the case of the GDR. THE INTERNATIONAL IMPACT OF OPENNESS Even though the bulk of this study focuses on the reform of foreign policy in communist states, the majority of the text refers to reforms in the domestic and foreign policies of individual states. In the course of the analysis, it becomes clear that the openness often had a major impact on the shape of the international system, and what follows is a brief preview of the changes, all the while recognizing that causes of change in the international system are no less hard to identify than causes of reform in communist states. By far the single most important outcome of greater openness was the ending of the Cold War. The main cause of change was the reforms in the Soviet Union, including the decision of the Gorbachev administration to seek greater interdependence with the West. Even if one wishes to avoid a ‘triumphalist’


perspective on the Soviet Union’s decision, it remains clear that the removal of the bipolar overlay in many parts of the world meant victory for Western ideas, policies and interests. Nowhere was this more clearly seen than in Europe, where the retreat of Soviet power left East Europeans free to shape their own domestic politics and forge links with the states of the European Community (EC) and NATO. As a result, the agenda for the EC—for example, about whether to grow wider before it grew more deeply integrated—was changed. NATO strategy was deeply affected by the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the subsequent emergence of conflict in the Balkans, long shrouded by that overlay of superpower-dominated Cold War. Changes were also seen in more narrow aspects such as arms control in Europe as far-reaching reductions became possible. In short, Europe saw the end of bipolarity and the emergence of greater multipolarity. The ending of bipolarity also had a dramatic impact on the prospects for more genuine collective security, and in particular the effective functioning of such international institutions as the United Nations. With the Soviet Union and the United States willing to work together in solving many international disputes, the United Nations was allowed to be more effective as something approaching an international consensus emerged on several issues. Nowhere was this better seen than in the decisive use of the United Nations by the international community— led by the United States—to roll-back the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. Of course, this is not to say that the mechanisms for collective security would always be effective in the post-Cold War world—witness the Yugoslav crisis of 1991—but certainly there was far greater chance for international cooperation. Some states, usually in the developing world, had relished their room for manoeuvre during the Cold War. Not only could they play one side off against the other, but they could often blame the superpowers for their own problems. The ending of bipolarity not only removed these powers of manipulation, but also meant that it was impossible to justify the existence of a so-called Third World when the ‘Second World’ of communist states had virtually ceased to exist. With some suggesting that the former communist states of Eastern Europe had joined the developing world, the old Third World found they also had new rivals for assistance and attention from the richer world. Of course, this recognition of the end of the Third World, as with so many other trends such as greater international interdependence, were well underway before the ending of the Cold War. The demise of the Third World had a great deal to do with the emergence of East Asia as a dynamic economic region where several states were able to make the transition from the status of the developing world to that of newly industrialized countries (NICs). As a result the Third World agenda of antagonism to the wealthy West and attempts to avoid dependency were gradually being abandoned. The removal of the crutch of support by the former communist world left many parts of the developing world


even more starkly aware of their need to open up to the international market economy. And yet, just as the changes in the East Asian parts of the international market economy were affecting the international system in ways different from those of the Atlantic world, so the reforms in East Asian communist states had an impact on the international system different from those derived from European reforms. The most striking contrast is, of course, that communist states have not collapsed in East Asia—at least not yet—and most of what might be called a communist world is now an East Asian phenomenon. Of course, the red flag fluttering over China, Vietnam and North Korea means very different things. While North Korea has had no substantial reform, it has been under pressure from its communist allies and capitalist adversaries to change. The result has not been an appreciable lessening of tension on the Korean peninsula, but the Chinese and Soviet reforms have made far more regional interdependence possible in all other parts of northeast Asia. However, this is less a matter of the removal of superpower overlay that we saw in Europe, because long before the ending of the Cold War East Asia had become more multipolar; Sino-Soviet competition for favour in Pyongyang and Hanoi has had a major impact on regional conflict since the early 1960s, if not before. Nevertheless, there were important changes that resulted from the greater openness in China and Vietnam, however limited those reforms might have been in some sectors. China certainly became a far more important actor in the regional economy, changing trade patterns all around the western rim of the Pacific. China’s more cooperative attitude to the international market economy made it more plausible to talk of an economic miracle in the Pacific and the emergence of many states in the region as new powers in the global economy. Even Japan’s power, to some extent at least, depends on a cooperative and stable China. And yet the severe limits on the reforms in Chinese military and security policy meant that the military balance in the region changed less significantly. Of course, China emerged as a great power long before it embarked on its reforms and thus East Asia was always more multipolar than Europe. But in the age of reform China also emerged as a more important actor on the global stage, even though the changes in Chinese policy could not always be described as reforms. While it is true that Chinese reforms did make it more possible to use the United Nations Security Council during the Gulf crisis of 1990–1, there were only two parts of East Asia that seemed to benefit from Chinese reforms in security policy. As we have already noted, the greater interdependence in northeast Asia and the degree of détente concerning the Korean question owes much to Chinese reforms. Similarly, Chinese reforms also helped the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council to make initial moves towards a settlement of the Cambodian problem.


Of course, Vietnamese reforms were even more important in making it possible to withdraw Vietnamese troops from Cambodia and therefore force the pace of a Cambodian settlement. But not all settlement of regional disputes should be attributed to greater openness, for it was only when China and Vietnam decided to cooperate in 1991—in part out of fear of an American-dominated New World Order and in part out of concern that the Soviet Union had let the red flag slip—that the fastest progress was made towards a Cambodian settlement. This ‘red solution’ to Indochinese problems reminds us that the limited reforms in Asian communism have meant that a very different set of changes in the international system are evident in East Asia. LOOKING AHEAD In sum, there is no single fate for communist states. Their patterns of reform have been every bit as varied as their pre-communist histories, their path to power, and their exercise of power in the age of reform. They each assume a distinctive position in the international system, with some features changing during the course of reform and some only when revolution took place. But to some extent, even if China and the Soviet Union were not communist states, the reform of their foreign policy might well bear a striking resemblance to what has just been taking place. As the communist traditions of these states were reformed, what was often revealed was a deeper historical and cultural legacy that was also coming under pressure to open up. Openness, which has a tendency to encourage greater conformity among states, may also, because it draws out deeper traditions, lead to greater diversity. Of course, any speculation about the future of communist states must recognize that the communist world has shrunk. As fascinating as the transition to market and democracy in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe might be, this is no longer a matter of concern to students of communist states. Yet, these stages of transition in the Soviet Union leave a vast number of important uncertainties, any one of which might have a major impact on the international system. Should the former Soviet Union disintegrate in chaos, the uncertainty and instability will reverberate through the otherwise generally optimistic world of EC states. Uncertainties over who to do business with in what was once the Soviet Union is a minor problem in comparison to the challenges to European security that might arise if the reforms do not begin to provide for more prosperity. Massive migration is only one of the possible problems for the future. The break-up of the Soviet Union might well mean that the capitalist states of the developed world are more free to shape their own agenda for the post-Cold War world, but most neighbours of the former Soviet Union would appreciate greater clarity about who they are living next door to.


We are still in the early stages as the former Soviet republics choose their own domestic and foreign policies. It is not inconceivable to suppose that some of these new states, most notably in Central Asia, will become reasonably similar to East Asian reform communists such as we have seen in China and Vietnam. Of course, this is not to say that Asian communism will be any more uniform than was international communism. One of the most important conclusions to emerge from our study is the obvious difference between communist states, and it looks as though this will continue to be a feature of the future. Yet the choice and the challenge to both Vietnam and China is how much of their socialist system they can retain while seeking the benefits of greater interdependence. China in particular has so far managed to prosper economically by pursuing greater openness, but has retained sufficient control for it still to be described as a mercantile power. In terms of military security the challenge is even greater, for China must choose between pursuing its irridentist and even great power goals, or settling for the greater constraints of an interdependent and multipolar world. While one can be relatively optimistic that Vietnam, and even eventually North Korea, will have to choose even more reforms unless they wish to remain isolated and poor, China seems to have wider choices. The decisions it makes about openness will be of vital importance to the fifth of mankind that lives within its frontiers, and for the increasingly important inhabitants of the Pacific. But whatever the choice China makes, the study of communist states has now become almost entirely the preserve of specialists on Asia.

18

1 FOREIGN ECONOMIC POLICY Gerald Segal

Of all the aspects of foreign policy reform in communist states, reform of foreign economic policy has been the most closely watched. Such attention has not merely been due to concern with the prospects for these states joining the international market economy, it is also recognized that one of the most distinctive features of the communist state has been the way in which a centrally planned economy represented some people’s conviction that Marxism offered another, and better, route to prosperity. Thus the failure of that closed, planned economy to deliver the economic goods was a major factor leading to reform in all areas. In this study we are not concerned with the wide range of domestic economic reforms unless they help to explain reforms of foreign economic policy, but it is clear that any description of how communist states opened their foreign policy cannot be undertaken without at least minimal coverage of aspects of domestic economic reform. In comparison to the other areas of foreign policy reform, its seems that reform of foreign economic policy is more closely related to reform of the domestic economy. And yet, it is equally clear that the nature of openness to the international economy varies depending on a wide range of variables. The size of the state, its position in the international economy, its ‘economic culture’, the existence of compatriots willing to help,1 the quality of its leadership, and good fortune are just some of the most important factors which help to determine the way in which reforms are undertaken. It has been suggested that there are ‘stages’ of reform which are common to all states, but the evidence suggests otherwise. In the broadest possible terms it is possible to identify such stages as ‘limited contact’ with reformist ideas, followed by loans which lead to a form of international integration. Subsequently, the centrally planned system has to cope with the consequences of this Open Door which leads to greater internal structural reform leading to a more market-run economy. But these ‘stages’ are so general as to be of little use as a guide to how and why individual states actually coped with the reality of reform. There has been a wide variation in policies in each of these ‘stages’. For example, contact can be opened with a

20 OPENNESS AND FOREIGN POLICY REFORM

wide range of states, loans can be of different types for different purposes, and structural reform varies depending on the position of the state and the intention of the leaders. The command economy is transformed in different ways in each case and the move to more realistic prices is therefore managed in unique ways. In the detailed assessment that follows, these differences are clarified in order to explain the particular process of reform. By asking common questions and looking for common stages, the analysis can be better structured, even though the reality remains more diverse. Before we delve into the explanations for the reform of foreign economic policy, it is convenient to spell out the basic reforms. It should be kept in mind that there is sometimes, particularly in the case of the Soviet Union, a major difference between the reality of reform and the rhetoric of reform. If one only listened to what Soviet reformers said about their intentions, one could be forgiven for believing that economic reform in the Soviet Union was far in advance of that in China. Of course, the reality has been far less reform in the Soviet Union—a picture made all the more unclear by the fact that in their official remarks Chinese reformers often played down the changes they were making, while allowing far more real reform to take place in a pragmatic fashion. Nevertheless, it is clear that those states who attempt domestic economic reform must also change their attitude to the nature of the international economy, seeing less class struggle and more international division of labour. Only China became a more important actor in the international economy as none of the other states managed to change their position in the international economy. Similarly, only China changed its type of trade by moving into more manufactured goods. None of the other states have been able to change the nature of the goods they trade. Foreign direct investment has risen sharply in China and constitutes an important part of domestic growth. Only in Vietnam were there signs of similar trends. Yet Hungary, along with China was largely successful in joining international economic institutions, even before the end of communist rule in 1989. The Soviet Union found it harder to join, as has Vietnam, albeit for different reasons. In all those states where there was some reform of foreign economic policy, the decision-making process on foreign economic relations was decentralized and opened to wider influence in response to a mixture of external and internal pressures. The value of the currency has been set at more realistic rates in China and Vietnam in response to external and internal pressures. Although it has been very much a reform that followed more basic moves to openness, it is also true that the legal system governing foreign economic relations was brought more into line with the demands of the international market, especially in China, Vietnam, Hungary and the Soviet Union. There has been little reform of the banking or securities system, although China showed some signs of opening up to external ownership of domestic securities.

FOREIGN ECONOMIC POLICY 21

THE DOMESTIC DIMENSION This section identifies some of the most important domestic factors explaining how and why foreign economic relations were reformed. Yet it is clear from the outset that the process of reform has been very complex and rarely followed anything like a similar pattern in the states under consideration. It is a major feature of the reforms, and also a major problem in the analysis that follows, that openness in, for example, foreign economic policy, is sometimes, but not necessarily linked to reform of other aspects of foreign policy. There is often a link between domestic aspects of reform and reform of foreign policy, but again, there is no necessary link. Apart from explaining the specific features that made some reform more successful than others, it is important to state at the outset that China in particular has demonstrated that there can be serious reform without a complete abandonment of either a basically centrally planned economy or Communist Party rule. While important doubts remain about how far that reform can go or how long it can last, it is not true, as observers of only the events of Eastern Europe might suggest, that substantial reform is impossible without an abandonment of the entire system. Of course, it is true that some of the features of communist rule and a centrally planned economy which led us to compare these states in the first place, continue to restrain further reform. Indeed, it can be argued that it was these very common features that provided the main impetus for reform in the first place. Briefly, and crudely, it can be said that foreign economic policy was reformed because of a basic sense that the economy was not working well. Under a command economy, it was impossible to determine real prices and without a sense of the proper value for goods and services, the economy was grossly inefficient. It was decided that more could be obtained from the outside world, and more could be stimulated from inside the countries concerned, if features of economic policy were opened up. But the process of reform required changes in ideology, decision-making and an array of related policies. The specific mix of these features depends on the specific state concerned, its place in the international system, and the conditions when it attempted its reforms. In each case, what might be described as ‘economic culture’ proves to be a major part of the explanation for the causes and course of reform. While it may be possible to argue that the Chinese reforms have been successful, it is not the same as suggesting that China has demonstrated a ‘third way’ which is neither capitalism nor communism. As our definition of openness made clear, we are looking at a series of continua of reform with any one country liable to occupy a different place depending on which aspect of reform is being assessed. China, like South Korea in the world of capitalist states, has demonstrated that there are ‘multiple ways’ of reform and relative prosperity.


Decision-making There is a complex relationship between domestic and international factors in reforming foreign economic policy. As the East European experience demonstrates, import-led modernization was often adopted as an alternative to economic reform. For example, by the early 1980s the share of foreign trade in national income in resolutely unreformed Czechoslovakia was roughly the same as in reforming Hungary (43 per cent). Moreover, if calculated on the basis of realistic exchange rates, the relative proportions of socialist and non-socialist trade (50–50) seem to have been the same. Similarly, the propensity to undertake large hard-currency borrowing does not seem to be related to the introduction of economic reforms. To be sure, the biggest debtors, Poland and Hungary, were the reformers in Eastern Europe, but the GDR must also be counted a big debtor by the early 1980s. Czechoslovakia, with an economic system very similar to that of the GDR, kept borrowing fairly low and after 1981 was able to reduce it to a minimum. Thus what seems to have happened in many parts of Eastern Europe was more often an ill-thought-out increase in the scale of the country’s economic interaction with the West, without any of the internal adjustments in economic structure which are an essential condition of effective economic integration into the world market. Although the quantitative openness of Hungary increased in the 1970s and 1980s, the basic import-substituting assumptions continued to dominate economic policy-making. If turning to the outside world is merely a way of obtaining capital that substitutes for the introduction of non-state production in the internal economy, then it is really a substitute for domestic reform.2 In Hungary it seems that the perpetuation of the import-substituting mentality was profoundly symptomatic of key aspects of the economic reforms. It was a product of the same powerful coalition of ideological and bureaucratic monopoly-producer interests which blocked the development of the economic reforms. In Hungary, the decision to respond to the world market changes in the 1970s by turning inward, resorting to protectionism and pretending that growth could nevertheless continue as before, resulted both in the massive and uncontrollable surge in debt and in the undermining of the economic reform. In the late 1980s the proclaimed strategy of increasing openness seemed to be part of a basically unchanged pattern subordinating the task of improving efficiency to the immediate goal of reducing debt. But in some countries, increased contact with the world beyond communism has had an effect on the institutions of government. In China the decade of reform clearly did see some institutional changes, albeit not to the extent of an abandonment of communist power. Decision-making was often taken away from the Communist Party as political reform came to mean greater professionalism.


What is more, decision-making was devolved down to lower, and often more specialist levels. Barbara Krug describes this more as an evolving ‘bargaining economy’ than a real market economy.3 Enterprises were allowed to raise foreign capital and send personnel abroad to experiment with new ideas of management and production. Even foreign trade monopolies were shattered and a form of ‘responsibility system’ was implemented. In the domestic economy, particularly in agriculture, individuals and collectives were given responsibility for certain tasks and by way of encouragement were allowed to retain significant proportions of any profits earned. As applied to the foreign trade sector, the larger numbers of institutions licensed to deal with foreign trade were given similar responsibility, although the extent of their powers varied by sector and region and depended on the general state of the economy. The result was a more mercantilist trading system under ultimate state control, but with sufficient incentives to stimulate growth. Chambers of commerce were established in 1987, taking over some of the functions formerly fulfilled by local bureaucracies. The service sector was especially open to such reforms and direct contacts were established with foreigners that made them far more independent of domestic guidance. Western procedures like the German standardization system (DIN) were accepted in China, as were World Bank and OECD systems for accounting. Certainly the joint ventures saw an intrusive and sometimes effective foreign presence that shaped the way the business was run. Any regular visitor to China would recognize both the changes and the continuities, especially in the service sector. To be sure, the changes were often insufficient and halting, but they were evident.4 By the late 1980s Vietnam attempted some similar reforms which were avowedly based on an observation of the Chinese success, although Hanoi was prodded into such policies by a less than economically successfully reforming Soviet Union. Even after the unrest in 1989 in China, the process of continual readjustment of the domestic institutions for foreign economic policy continued. New practices were introduced in January 1991 aimed at creating greater flexibility in the reaction of various parts of the Chinese economy to changing norms in the international economy. Greater competition was created among Chinese exporters and although the centre continued to take a significant proportion of the profits for redistribution, the central authorities regularly adjusted their proportion in order not to stifle exports.5 Variable incentives were used to alter the balance between heavy and light industrial exports and generally to demonstrate to the provinces that the centre was ultimately in control of trade policy. There is undoubtedly waste and inefficiency in such a system that uses redistributed income to bail out loss-making state-owned enterprises, but so long as not too much is taken from the more profitable firms and Special Economic Zones (SEZs), the system seems to prosper reasonably well.6 The reforms of 1991 also allowed the central authority to support specific firms more easily and


thereby helped to undermine the independent authority of some provincial governments, as in Guangdong. The key to this process in China was the notion of professionalism—the drift from Red to Expert in managing the economy. This did not always mean that the Communist Party abandoned control, for sometimes the new experts were Party members and important influence was retained over what was clearly becoming a more market-oriented economy. Contact with Western business reinforced this trend. Contact with international organizations such as the IMF and World Bank was not as unsettling as it was for smaller economies in the developing world, but these foreign institutions did help to reinforce those parts of the Chinese system pushing for further reforms. By August 1991, the reform of foreign economic policy-making and practice in the Soviet Union had not gone as far as the Chinese reform before 1989, but then the state of the Soviet economy was so much more catastrophic than that in China. A major problem for the Soviet Union was that its vast natural resource reserves allowed it to sell raw materials or oil and gas as a way of earning foreign currency, without engaging in real reform. Arguments could be made, even in the late Brezhnev period, that there was no need for real reform if such sales could be made. The windfall gains from the first oil shock of 1974 persuaded many who were opposed to reform proposed by Prime Minister Kosygin in 1965 that there were softer options. There was certainly less incentive to contemplate building up the export of manufactured goods to the developed world, which would certainly have required institutional reform. The windfall profits from oil and gas sales led to a sharp increase in the influx of technology from the developed world which was not backed up by major structural reform and therefore merely put off the day when real reform would be undertaken. The result was a basically unreformed ‘USSR plc’.7 Several decentralizing measures had been introduced even before the death of Brezhnev—for example, a Council of Ministers resolution on 9 July 1981 granted branch ministries and their subordinate production associations and enterprises the right to establish direct contacts with counterparts in the CMEA (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) countries—but this was far from the root-and-branch approach that was required. The Ministry of Foreign Trade remained the only Soviet organization licensed to trade with capitalist firms. Yet it did so on an essentially commercial basis and under the constraints, it was successful in exploiting its massive power as one of the biggest trading corporations on the world market. However, its major problem was that it was far less effective at ensuring that the Soviet economy used its purchases efficiently and it had little ability to ensure that what it was selling was produced as cheaply as possible. The pattern of trade with CMEA partners was very different from that with the developed market


economies. The CMEA model was not based on hard currency prices, as of course was the case for the domestic Soviet economy. A far more sweeping reform began in 1986.8 A joint resolution of the CPSU Central Committee and the Council of Ministers on 19 August effectively broke the monopoly of the Ministry of Foreign Trade by granting the right to engage directly in foreign trade to 21 other ministries, 66 enterprises, and a few other bodies including the Union Republics. By the end of 1987, about 900 economic bodies at various levels were engaged in direct foreign economic relations. The pattern of this reform included a reorganization of the central foreign trade management structure which basically created a super-ministry with the aim of streamlining coordination. Thus power was not genuinely devolved to independent actors. The creation of joint ventures and the granting of the right to conduct foreign trade to cooperatives did, however, move somewhat in this direction and was introduced in the teeth of opposition from the Ministry of Foreign Trade. By April 1991 some 3,000 organizations were registered to conduct foreign trade. But in March and December 1989 the government restricted foreign economic activity to trade in those goods used or produced directly by the firm and introduced export licences in response to growing shortages on the domestic market. Even in 1991 Soviet firms were ‘obliged’ to fill state orders before trading freely in their surplus. Without more fundamental reform in the domestic economy it seemed that reform of foreign economic policy could not really be moved from the realm of theory to practice. It was also a problem that in 1990 there developed a complex and clumsy system of export licensing which was often hijacked by populist leaders at various levels in the Soviet Union.9 Further decrees were regularly formulated to deal with all these problems, but the process was messy and protracted. By August 1991 it was hard to tell just what was needed to turn the rhetoric, and even the institutional reform, into real improvements in the pattern of Soviet foreign economic relations. In the more pluralist political atmosphere of 1991 there was a wider range of discussion of economic options, many of which began to focus on the divisions between ‘conservatives’ and ‘radicals’, and between the centre and region (more below). Yet another important cleavage was created by those who saw environmental issues as an important aspect of reform and in the spirit of the ‘new age’ argued for an environmentally conscious reform. At a time when the environmental movement was gaining influence in the capitalist world, this was a campaign with international echoes, and yet remained a relatively ‘safe’ place for early opponents within the Communist Party system, especially in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.10 When pluralism became more developed, those who ‘hid’ in the environmental movement shifted into the mainstream of reform and soon ran into conflict with the remaining ‘greens’ who were far less committed to economic growth. The Chernobyl disaster brought out the differences between those genuinely interested in the environment and


those more interested in using this issue for broader reform. The environmental movement grew increasingly populated by an uneasy mixture of people (as it was in the West), some of whom represented ultra-nationalism. As was evident in the case of Russian nationalists who increasingly spoke of the ‘sacred’ soil and rivers, the environmentalists were often some of the more conservative elements in society and in the Russian case soon set up cleavages with Central Asians who, for example, wanted Siberian rivers diverted to the south. Greater political pluralism which also brought greater power for the Republics tended to mean that environmental issues stood far less chance of being dealt with, except as a tool for further regional interests.11 To some extent China saw similar differences in debates over whether to build the dams on the Three Gorges or a nuclear power plant at Daya Bay. Whatever the case, the trend was that a degree of greater political openness did not always lead to greater economic openness and in some cases merely led to confusion and indecision. All these differences that emerged, especially in the debates in the Soviet Union about economic reform, were not usually immediately conducive to an opening up of the economy to the outside world. Discussions about ‘Grand Bargains’ in 1991, and the resulting caution on the part of Western governments when asked to provide large amounts of money to the Soviet Union, suggested that problems were deep-rooted and suspicion about the fate of the reforms ran deep. It was generally agreed that openness was necessary, but there was no agreement, either in the Soviet Union or outside, about the nature of this reform. In contrast to China, where sufficient domestic reform was possible and real improvements in foreign economic relations did take place, the Soviet Union had so far managed neither. No Grand Bargain was necessary for China because China was producing goods that could be sold on the international market and foreign investors saw there was money to be made. In no other Communist Party ruled country was anything like the Chinese success achieved. The East European states under Communist Party rule demonstrated many of the same problems in attempts to reform the domestic economy as we have seen in the Soviet case. Of course, none of the East European countries had enough time under the wing of a reforming Soviet Union to develop another route to reform and the changes since 1989 have not been considered because they are taking place as part of the revolutionary abandonment of communism. But before 1989, in neither Hungary nor the GDR did the structure of foreign economic relations change very much. Although Hungary’s New Economic Mechanism led to an increase in the number of enterprises with foreign trade rights, the central state enterprises retained their vital role.12 Between 1973 and 1978 only nineteen more enterprises were granted foreign trade rights. However, after the failed economic policies of the 1970s with resulting heavy debts, new laws were passed to develop enterprise autonomy. The Ministry of Foreign Trade was merged with the Ministry of Internal Trade into a single ministry. It became easier for


enterprises from 1981 to acquire foreign trade rights and the ‘one product, one foreign trade enterprise’ principle was abandoned. The real turning point was the Ministry of Trade’s decree No.1 of 1987 which established foreign trade as a statutory right of economic organizations, including joint ventures. Thus permission was no longer required from the Ministry, only formal registration. The number of firms engaged in foreign trade rose from about 350 in December 1987 to about 1,000 in mid-1989 with the number of private firms reaching 300. Yet some 40 per cent of convertible currency exports were not included in these reforms and CMEA trade was still closely controlled by the Ministry. In the GDR, the Kombinat reform of 1979 created 132 enterprises under central direction and 93 under regional authorities in an attempt to create new forms of economic management that could operate more efficiently in a centrally planned economy.13 By 1986 some 64 foreign trade enterprises were operating and all still came under the supervision of the Ministry of Foreign Trade. Although there was some decentralization of decisionmaking, the essential power remained with the centre and thus these could hardly be described as reforms in the sense of openness that we have been using throughout our analysis. It is possible that these changes bought time by creating some economic growth and the illusion of a dynamic leadership with new ideas, but in essence the Kombinat was very much a feature of a centrally planned economy. In stark contrast to the Europeans, Vietnam followed the Chinese route to a more radical decentralization to local levels, with far less central control over their decisions or responsibilities for their actions. Some enterprises were given the right to conduct their own export policy and import of materials, machinery and spare-parts. Some of this decentralization since 1986 went so quickly and so far that in the rice trade at least, Hanoi established an Association of Rice Exporters in order to keep competition under some control and keep a minimum export price while helping provinces to find export markets and mediating conflicts.14 There was little question that Vietnam was really committed to refoming its rice production and its place in the international rice market, but the ruling Party felt that unfettered competition was harming national interests and producing waste. In keeping with the Chinese practice, the Vietnamese sought some way of retaining essential control while benefiting from some aspects of market reform.

REGIONALISM As the Chinese experience makes plain, the widening of reforms in foreign economic policy is closely connected with the changing relationship between the centre and the regions in individual countries. The question of regionalism is obviously far more important for the larger states under consideration, and it is also clear that the range of types of regions also makes it hard to identify a clear


pattern to the centre-region relationship even in any single state. However, it is obviously essential to assess the regional dimension to Chinese and Soviet reforms, if only because some would argue that there is good evidence that China can be treated as more than one country for vast parts of its foreign trade and the Soviet Union looked as though it was moving in a similar direction.15 And yet the difference between the implications of regionalism for China and the Soviet Union are vast. China has a long tradition of a unified country and despite its regional variations, there is no real separatist movement except in Tibet or parts of Xinjiang. China may hold a great deal of its territory by virtue of imperialism of the past few hundred years, but most of its population have been under Chinese rule for far longer. By contrast, the Soviet Union was roughly based on a platform of Russian imperialism which had a far more tenuous hold on very different types of people. Thus the risk of dividing up the empire was far greater and the risks of encouraging regional economic independence were harder to sustain without running far greater political risks. Of course, if China is understood in terms of a ‘Greater China’ that includes overseas Chinese, Taiwan and Hong Kong, then the diversity within mainland China seems less striking. Hong Kong and Taiwan have clearly played important parts in helping to develop parts of south-east China and tie them into the international economy. But if China is treated as the territory of the People’s Republic, then it is clear that China has opened several doors to the outside world, and therefore the already existing and sometimes barely suppressed tendency towards regionalism in China was allowed to develop. Some provinces, most notably Guangdong, have managed to resist new orders from the centre at times of retrenchment and have been able to grow their way out of inflationary problems that afflict the rest of the country. Indeed, by demonstrating such independence they have further encouraged the outside world to regard them as special parts of China relatively immune to shifts evident in Peking and other regions.16 In some respects foreign firms can trade with certain provinces or special trading zones as if they were a different country and relatively free of the worries about what central ministries in Peking might be doing. It should be kept in mind that not all such regionalism depends on openness to the West. Guangdong depends on Hong Kong, Fujian depends on Taiwan and Hainan island seems tied to a range of investors. Shandong is building bridges with South Korea and, most interesting of all, Dongbei as well as Xinjiang opened cross-border contacts with the Soviet Union. Patterns of provincial trade certainly reflect both these changes and the regional connections. In a country the size of China, it is fair to say that opening several doors will allow a diversity of interests to develop. When changes of policy lead to a pulling to of some doors, not all move at the same speed. Once the open-door policy is adopted, as the post-June 1989 events make clear, it is impossible to go back to the old ways except at a terrible cost few seem prepared to pay.


In the post-1989 China, Shanghai has staked a claim to return to its former status as the leading cosmopolitan city in China as Guangdong province struggles to recover from the recent retrenchment. Such rivalries are fought in part at the highest level of government in Peking where big city bosses take important positions of power, and through competition in offering better terms to foreign investors. Shanghai is even contemplating allowing foreign banks to open branches, a change from present policy which confines them to the five SEZs. As Guangdong found some of its wings clipped (high rates of tax on foreign currency earning paid to the centre and control of Shenzhen taken by the centre), Shanghai and other parts of China looked for opportunities. This competition stimulates the creation of better conditions for foreign investment.17 The Soviet Union, unlike any of the other East European countries, was also big and diverse enough to both benefit and suffer from such centrifugal tendencies. Indeed, it seems that as the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics became less Soviet and Socialist, they also became less united republics. Even before the doors were properly opened to outside economic influence, various parts of the Soviet Union were heading for the exit, and stubbing their toes as they went. Some were content to negotiate among themselves in search of a more economically rational pattern of relations and some saw little hope for renegotiating the terms of the union. By 1991 this diversity of responses to new conditions was creating a messy picture of diverse reforms and enough uncertainty to scare off most foreign investors. During the course of 1991 substantial progress was made in sorting out a new relationship between the centre and the republics, but by August 1991 it was still unclear just how much the individual republics would be able to operate as genuinely independent actors on the international stage. The Baltic republics were the most striking case of republics expecting economic benefits from independence and integration with the European economy, but increasingly coming to realize the high price of a precipitious exit from the Union (even if they could have obtained such an exit visa). It certainly was not evident that there was much immediate economic logic to rapid separation from the Soviet Union, but the expectation of medium-term gains did seem reasonable. Given the skills of the population in the Baltic republics, and the willingness of West Europeans eventually to assist their desire for independence, there was good reason to believe that an economic future outside the Soviet Union was likely to be more prosperous. But in the short term there were major problems in dividing property with the federal authorities and agreeing an amicable settlement. In Moldavia and Central Asia, the economic calculations of the extreme nationalists were far less well thought-out. Unlike the Baltics or the Chinese Gold Coast, there was less reason to believe that the international economy would give these regions a better deal than they already got from the Soviet Union. Yet the problems of repressed nationalism suddenly uncapped, and


unnatural political frontiers, seemed to feed problems that defied economic logic. In the case of Central Asia there was some calculation that if they controlled their own resources, like other Islamic states, they might be better off. But the example of Afghanistan rather than Saudi Arabia seemed a far more likely fate for any of these would-be-independent republics that do not have major oil reserves. Indeed it was precisely such calculations that led the Central Asians to re-negotiate the terms of their inclusion in the Soviet Union rather than seek outright independence. Kazakhstan in particular seemed anxious to prove that a re-negotiated Union could be arranged and enough scope could be allowed to take advantage of local factors that encourage greater openness to the outside world. With a substantial Korean minority the Kazakhs found that South Korea was particularly interested in developing links with this part of the Soviet Union. In 1990, before the rapid disintegration of the Union, there was some hope that if some parts of the Soviet Union were allowed just a small degree of local autonomy they might well imbibe their foreign learning and investment while remaining part of an essentially unchanged Union. The Soviet far east was a good example where a growing level of foreign interest was expected to reshape local politics. Various voices in the Soviet Pacific, despite the absence of a formal regional structure of government, demanded greater local autonomy in setting wage rates and tax policies. This was done in part because the foreign partners wanted special deals, and in part because of a long-standing grievance about neglect by the centre. Whatever the case, the evidence suggests that when outside economic forces combined with powerful local voices, changes could be made in the communist system. Certainly the series of new regulations governing investment and joint ventures in the Soviet far east suggested these coalitions could get swift results.18 But the case of the far east also suggests that it was insufficient merely to change regulations if the basic structure of the economy was not being reformed. The bewildering disarray in the Soviet Union in 1990 caused by conflicting demands for regional autonomy, including within the Russian Federation, coupled with basic problems of distribution and confused lines of policy implementation, meant that there were elements of a reformed system being grafted onto a basically unreformed structure. What is more, different strategies were being pursued in different regions under conditions where it was even unclear who had the authority to take decisions. Although it was clear that some decentralization was both necessary and underway in 1991, there was little confidence that rapid progress to a new, and working, system was possible. In January 1991 the Russian Federation created its own republican Ministry of Foreign Economic Affairs and its own Foreign Trade Bank.19 Although the rhetoric, even in the Russian republic was that the new bureaucracy would not do much more than watch over the movements of what was essentially expected to be a market economy, the reality looked like being less open. Worry over the control of joint ventures concerning


the exploitation of natural resources—the key to any Russian foreign trade—led to statements about the need to supervise deals and control business practices. The new Russian Foreign Trade Bank was also, despite the free-market rhetoric, supposed to manage central bank functions which would not only bring it into conflict with the central authorities, but also confuse any foreign investor about who makes vital decisions. By August 1991, the centre and the republics had yet to sort out their conflicting positions on a whole host of key economic issues. The confusion was used by the G-7 in July 1991 as a reason for withholding major aid to the Soviet Union, despite various attempts by Gorbachev to suggest that this problem was under control. Similar confusion was evident about control of the Special Economic Zones and the policies designed to attract foreign investment (see below). In sum, the Soviet Union had been far less successful in taking advantage of the possibility for regionalism in foreign economic relations, although the Chinese experience suggests there were important reforms which could have led to real changes in the pattern of foreign economic relations. In smaller states, the problems and opportunities of regionalism are obviously different. In Vietnam it is already clear that long-standing differences between North and South could be problems turned into possibilities with the right mix of external enticement and internal flexibility. Not only does the South seem to have more people willing to take up the new opportunities provided by the new incentives in agriculture, but because of the American experience there is far more of a base in the South for doing business with the Western economy. The change of political system after 1975 did not entirely demolish the structure of South Vietnam’s ties to the capitalist economy outside. Even the fact that millions of Vietnamese fled the country after 1975 was eventually turned to Hanoi’s advantage in the late 1980s when the diaspora communities were enticed into playing an important part in stimulating foreign investment and domestic growth. The siting of joint ventures in the South is yet another manifestation of the new opportunities based on a more confident attitude to the differences between North and South. As local authorities were allowed to establish direct contacts with the outside world, they grew better able to obtain the producer and consumer goods they needed. This facilitated technological retooling and the changes were then most clearly seen around the Ho Chi Minh City area. In the north of Vietnam along the Chinese frontier the détente with China in the early 1990s allowed a regional trade boomlet and increasing prosperity for this remote part of Vietnam. A more liberal attitude to Vietnamese Chinese assisted this process and was part of the general process of opening up the Vietnamese economy.20 Of course it is still too early to tell if the same sorts of centrifugal forces that operated in China will help to pull Vietnam in different directions. In smaller states, and especially ones with such bitter legacies of division, the risks seem much higher than they are in China or the Soviet Union.


In sum, the opening of foreign economic policy is in part related to reform of the domestic economy, but the nature of both internal and external reforms often depends on the particular mix of features of each state. China adopted a responsibility system in both domestic and foreign policy which gave individuals and collectives sufficient incentive and scope to engage in foreign economic relations. But the reforms did not mean a complete loss of central control. The most far-reaching decentralization was to various regions and special zones that were more able to pursue their own policies, so long as they abided by general rules and remitted sufficient funds to the centre. Reforms of the system in the Soviet Union appeared, on paper at least, to have gone further than reforms in China, but the reality was far less real reform and far more uncertainty about where the power to decide on deals actually lay. The failure to sort out the centreregion relationship was perhaps the most important difference with China, although the failure to reform the Soviet domestic economy was perhaps the most important obvious block on reform of foreign economic policy. It is also true that openness at home and abroad does re-shape domestic decision-making. In some cases, the system is thrown into greater crisis by the contortions it is made to endure in the name of reform. As in the case of the East European countries, the system might then collapse. But the system can also collapse for reasons unrelated to the impact of reform, as in the GDR. Reform does not necessarily buy stability for the regime, but failure to reform at all seems to eventually lead to crisis (North Korea). However, it is still not clear that foreign economic policy reform is impossible if there is no sweeping political reform at home. The Chinese and Vietnamese cases suggest that there is much that can be done that is more reform than revolution, and perhaps it is more easily done in poorer and more agrarian economies. China in particular demonstrates a remarkably pragmatic approach to the international economy. The key lies in producing sufficient economic goods to ensure sufficient legitimacy for the ruling regime. The Soviet Union went the revolutionary route in part for that reason. Vietnam may be poor enough that expectations are not high enough to create revolutionary conditions. In China, where the economic reforms are constantly adjusted in a pragmatic way, key features of a centrally planned economy are still retained and foreign economic policy remains essentially mercantile, although with significant variations over time and in different regions. It may be that because of its size China will be able to go in different directions at the same time and thus ensure that, at least for the medium term, it can remain a communist party state and retain genuine reforms. Whatever the case, it seems clear that there is little that can be identified as a single Chinese route to reform of foreign economic policy, and even less that seems transferable to other states. Most of the reason for the uniqueness of each case has to do with the particular local conditions producing what might be called an economic culture. However, an important part of the variations in the


fate of reforms has to do with forces operating in the international system and we now turn to a consideration of these issues. THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM Learning about reform The ‘traditional socialist economic system’ in its Stalinist variant meant ‘economic autarky and introverted, import-substituting industrialization’.21 The idea of this type of system was exported to, or imposed on, a number of states in East Europe and East Asia during Stalin’s time. However, the import was planted in very different soils and as the local political cultures changed the nature of the Stalinist system, a range of systems was created. Chinese and Vietnamese comrades, in particular, had made their own revolutions and were better able to shape their own distinctive system. Thus there was no single starting point when these communist systems began to reform their foreign economic relations. None of the systems were entirely closed to external influence and each had a distinctive basis on which to build. China was perhaps the most eclectic in its willingness to learn from the outside world.22 As Jiang Zemin noted in 1990, China made a point of taking in ideas from anywhere so long as they worked. Certainly the developed capitalist world was a major source of inspiration, but special stress was laid on the success of the East Asian version of capitalism and its use of certain features of a command economy and its political authoritarianism.23 Not surprisingly, given the diversity of lessons that could be learned from the outside, ‘China’ is hard to describe as a single actor as different groups and interests picked what they preferred from outside experience. It is crucial to keep in mind in all these discussions that China has been debating the fate of socialism for much of the period since 1978 and has adopted a pragmatic attitude to what could be best applied. A subject as large, and diffuse, as the mutual dissemination and influence of ideas on economic reform between China and other communist states would need several volumes to do it justice.24 One article, written by a Soviet expert assessing what China learned from Hungarian reforms, is just one of the more complex examples of how the flow of ideas is hard to pin down.25 Three highlights of the picture in the late 1980s are picked out here: 1 the growing recognition of the limits on borrowing between China and Eastern Europe; 2 the change in the content of such common themes as were identified; 3 the differentiation in East European appreciations of Chinese reform.


1 The exploration and exploitation of China/East European parallels was so vigorous in the first half of the 1980s that, by 1986, both sides were pretty clear on what they could and could not learn from each other. In earlier stages Chinese experts had tended to focus on one ‘favourite’ country at a time—Yugoslavia, very briefly Romania, and then Hungary. But by 1987 a Chinese expert working in the United States, Jiang Chunze of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (writing in Comparative Economic Studies of Spring 1987), could write an article surveying objectively the whole range of East European approaches to reform—GDR ‘perfection of planning’, Yugoslav self-management, and varying models of ‘exploratory reform’ using non-plan mechanisms in Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania—and note that China in some fields had advanced further than any of them. One effect of these perceptions was to heighten the tendency in Chinese reform planning to eclecticism, i.e. the selection of one or a few strong points from each of several different foreign models. The obvious dangers of this, i.e. lack of compatibility and overall theoretical incoherence, hardly seem to have occurred to anyone in China. One explanation, and a further general constraint on borrowing, may have been the relatively weak theoretical background of Chinese political leaders, who saw no problem about turning professional economic advice on and off like a tap and applying it wherever and whenever they saw fit. Secondly, there seem to have been more cases in the late than the early 1980s (though this would be difficult to quantify) where Chinese analysts used the East European ‘laboratory’ to draw negative lessons—concluding sometimes that a given country had not gone far enough, sometimes that a given reform had unacceptable political and/or social consequences. Finally, there was a general swing of interest among Chinese thinkers in the forefront of reform away from Eastern Europe and towards other partners whose size and/or intrinsic character better matched China’s own. Zhao Ziyang is said to have asked researchers in 1985 to concentrate their efforts henceforth on the Soviet Union, which was not only the sole socialist country comparable to China in size and organizational complexity but also, perhaps, brought the issue of the relationship between economic and political-structural reform most clearly into focus. By 1988–9 an alternative school was looking outside the socialist camp altogether, to capitalist Asian models (South-East Asia, Japan, even Taiwan) from which China might borrow the elements of a market-based but politically centralized new authoritarianism. The reverse phenomenon of growing East European objectivity about European-Chinese differences also existed, though coloured and complicated by the policy goals of each country involved. During the 1970s it had been possible for East Europeans, especially those of an anti-regime or anti-Soviet bent, to cherish Utopian images of a China which they felt ‘must’ offer a better socialist alternative. Strange as it seems, the Czechoslovak dissident movement after 1968


included a vein of idealistic pro-Chinese sentiment which was not dispelled even when one of its leaders made a personal visit to Peking. Such feelings partly explain the hopes and enthusiasm with which East European reformers took up contact with China in the early 1980s. Ever since the Cultural Revolution, however, there had been an alternative view, born out of disillusion with the super-ficial socialist ‘fraternity’ of the 1950s, which stressed China’s alienness, its Asian, Third-World and Sinocentric characteristics: and the re-emergence of this theme can be spotted at intervals from about 1986–7. 2 The themes of such reform-related interchange of ideas as went on between China and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s generally had a ‘second-generation’ or ‘post-honeymoon’ feel to them. First, as to specific areas covered, the focus had moved on from the choice of initial key steps in decentralization to the more complex issues of how to continue some form of macroeconomic control, and deal with negative social repercussions, while keeping up or increasing the incentive for enterprises and individuals to exploit the new freedom for restructuring and growth. These were often summed up (e.g. by Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian on his June 1986 visit to Hungary) as the characteristic problems of ‘urban reform’, although in fact one of the most difficult and worst managed aspects was the relationship between agricultural and industrial prices and living standards. What was discussed and what was learned in exchanges with Eastern Europe were of course two different things. Not only might East European ‘lessons’ be picked out and manipulated for partisan purposes, as probably happened in the prices debate, but even the more technical and uncontroversial type of ‘lesson’ might be misapprehended and misapplied in China because of systemic obstacles. Chinese research into financial methods of macroeconomic control may offer just such a case. Hungary was rightly seen as the most interesting model here, and in 1986–7 Hungarian visitors to China included at least eight important analysts and exponents of financial management. Yet the use of financial levers of indirect eco-nomic control remained one of the weakest areas of Chinese reform throughout this period, both in theory and practice. This is not the place to debate the reasons in full, but one point worth bringing out is the low level of professional skills (and often of manpower of any kind) in the Chinese banking world and in the excise, insurance, taxation, standards and quality control establishments, which would have made a mockery from the outset of any attempt to apply nationwide a sophisticated system of credit and tax differentiation on, say, Hungarian lines. One solution was to devolve the organization of such matters increasingly to the provincial level, so that the advanced regions could experiment on a more manageable scale with systems to meet their developing needs (vide the copying by Shenzhen of certain aspects of business regulation from Hong Kong). But another, and perfectly logical response to the growing appreciation of such problems was the high priority


granted from the 13th Party Congress (November 1987) onwards to the wholesale reform of the Chinese civil service system and the machinery of law and justice. You could not introduce modern policies, in economic reform or any other field, with a hope of success until you had modern men and women to implement and also to monitor them. One final point to make here is that the lesson about the inherent limitations of piecemeal economic reform could be, and was, learned by Chinese analysts from East European experiences as well as from their own. Already in July 1986 Gao Shangquan was arguing in the light of his Hungarian trip that fiscal imbalances and growth problems in the early stages of reform could only be met by further and bolder reform measures. The most dangerous thing of all would be to ‘waste time’. In the same month a Polish journal was analysing the problems of ‘overheating’ bottlenecks, and maldistribution of investment in the Chinese economy and recommending to Chinese decision-makers exactly the same conclusion. Károly Grósz, the new Hungarian party leader, was making some striking statements around the same time on the need for ‘deep surgery’ to overcome the damage that earlier reforms had done by just tinkering on the surface; and perhaps it is not fanciful to detect reflections of his thinking in mid-1988 statements by Zhao Ziyang which warned of old problems recurring cyclically if reform did not tackle the inadequacies of underlying structures. It was this kind of mutually reinforcing dialogue between China and Eastern Europe, as well as specific visits and borrowings, which Chinese hard-liners probably had in mind when they criticized Zhao Ziyang’s school after June 1989 for being overinfluenced by an Eastern Europe already suborned by the West. It was also the basis for some East European intellectuals’ feelings of regret, almost guilt, after June 1989 about having urged on China ideas of reform which proved too advanced for acceptance and merely sealed the fate of their local proponents. Where one must be very cautious, for a number of reasons including some mentioned above, is in assuming that the picture of application of reform in China and Eastern Europe was actually as comparable before 1989 as such lines of thought would imply; let alone that the situations resulting today could safely be encompassed in a single analysis. 3 A glance at East Europeans’ reactions to Chinese reform developments in the late 1980s helps to bring out the fact that the former were, themselves, far from impartial observers. For one thing, because all were supposed to have equally good relations with China, the Chinese liked to identify at least one point of reform on which an important visitor from any given country could be seen to agree. Hence the continuing, and increasingly unconvincing, Chinese compliments to Romanian experiments with various kinds of enterprise autonomy. Hence President Li Xiannian’s assurances to the visiting Bulgarian leader Zhivkov in May 1987 that China was ‘keenly interested’ in Zhivkov’s ideas of ‘the State as an owner and the workforces as managers of the socialist


means of production’. Even those East European countries where exchange of ideas was more substantial tended to handle China rather like the six blind men with the elephant, hanging on to those parts they could understand and find useful. The GDR predictably stressed the more orthodox aspects: before Honecker’s visit in October 1986 the East Berlin magazine Horizont published an interview with Deng Liqun guaranteeing that China’s reform would aim at socialist, not capitalist goals and that ‘opening’ would be directed towards socialist as well as capitalist partners. Only four months later in February 1987, the Hungarian Central Committee member Havasi was claiming that China and Hungary agreed on the need to subordinate economic planning to the demands of the market and to regulate production by purely ‘economic methods’. The one country which frequently and openly criticized Chinese reforms for going too far was Czechoslovakia. One particular writer in Rude Pravo, Divis, published a whole series of articles in 1986 on this theme. A different writer in Bratislava Pravda of 15 August 1986 saw China’s ‘open’ policy as causing corruption and trade imbalances, and lending itself to exploitation by Westerners who delighted in destabilizing socialist economies. All this no doubt had much to do with the debate over opening in Czechoslovakia’s own policy. China’s SEZs were seen in Prague as the embodiment of ‘opening’, and when Premier Strougal went to the Shenzhen SEZ in April 1987 he duly gave his verdict to accompanying Czechoslovakian journalists: China was ‘probably gaining a correct view of how to continue further’ from experience in Shenzhen, but ‘such an experiment is possible only in this big country and under its specific conditions’. If any generalization is possible given such widely differing perspectives among the East Europeans, it may be said that the main areas of interest for them in China over this period were: agricultural property and marketing systems; rural enterprises; small-scale enterprises and other forms of private ownership and management in the towns; methods of attracting and regulating foreign investment, and, of course, the SEZs. The Soviet Union’s role in this international marketplace of ideas is harder to assess. Gilbert Rozman has certainly demonstrated the extent to which China was a ‘mirror of socialism’ and Soviet reformers looked in part to the Chinese experience in everything from agricultural reform to SEZs and joint ventures with foreigners.26 Indeed, as the Soviet reforms developed, China also began to learn from the Soviet experience and the flow of ideas became far too muddy to identify the source of individual streams.27 The sources of reform ideas for the Soviet economy seem every bit as varied as those used in China. As a power on the fringes of Europe, if not actually a part of the broader West European tradition, the Soviet Union’s reformers seemed prepared to look to European social democracy as a useful source of ideas that did not mean complete capitulation to capitalism. Yet even the Swedish or West


German models, for all their social security nets, prospered as much more market economies than those in East Asia. They certainly were genuine pluralist democracies. Thus for those in the Soviet Union less willing to adopt the most open of market economy options, it was not surprising that at least some people in the Soviet Union also began to look at the Japanese and even the South Koreans as possible alternative sources of ideas of economic reform.28 Some Soviet observers were especially interested in the East Asian NICs which showed that although privatization may be incompatible with ‘a militarized or bureaucratized system of economic relations’, privatization intended to build a ‘socialist-market’ was possible if one saw socialism more in terms of a ‘postcapitalist mode of production’. It was intriguing that privatization had a range of meanings even in capitalist economies.29 The range of lessons sought by reformers in the Soviet Union was remarkably wide and eclectic. For years the official journal of the CPSU, Kommunist, had a section entitled ‘In the states of socialism: experience, achievements, problems’ which dealt with the dimensions of reform in socialist states. Kommunist evolved with the reforms in the 1980s and articles grew more bold and critical of the old system. Oleg Bogomolov wrote in May 1987 of the positive experience of Hungary, Poland and Romania in the creation of mixed capital companies and joint ventures.30 Similarly, Abel Aganbegyan praised the Hungarian reforms as having found the equilibrium between market demand and supply.31 Some authors of a conservative bent argued for the preservation of the state monopoly of foreign trade because of concern over the misallocation of scarce resources.32 Yet after the first few years of perestroika when the bolder authors were not silenced, more praise could be heard for the contemporary capitalist system. Thus, for example, Aganbegyan in mid-1987 praised the high level of Japanese quality control and the higher investment in education in the United States.33 In October 1988 Kommunist carried an article with a theoretical view that was far more positive about the capitalist world. The author argued that in the post-war period a new system had emerged whereby the social process was regulated under capitalism which allowed the periodic removal of ‘contradictions’.34 Other articles in the same journal continued to show the relative backwardness of the socialist states when compared with the developed capitalist economies. An article in Kommunist in November 1989, albeit by a leading Czech economic reformer, was explicit about the superior performance of market economies.35 Kommunist and other official publications also began publishing uncensored articles by, and interviews with, famous Western economists and politicians (e.g. Alec Nove, J.K.Galbraith, Andreas von Bulow, Stephen Cohen, U.Agnelli) under the heading ‘A View from the Sidelines’.36 MEiMO ran a section called ‘The Overseas Experience’ in which the Western economies were openly held up as an example for the Soviet Union. There were articles about medical insurance


and anti-trust legislation in the United States, as well as pieces on ‘outstanding companies’ in Japan.37 Among the smaller states, the Hungarians were perhaps the most explicit in focusing on lessons from the capitalist world. In their search for a socialist system that was a hybrid of market and plan, they learned to some extent from the Polish experience, and from Polish economic theorists such as W.Brus.38 However, the primary inspiration came from the capitalist world, although it was recognized at an early stage that there was no single model that might be adopted.39 It was only possible to be explicit, at least at the highest levels of policy debate, about the lessons from the West in the last months of the communist regime. Some more specific issues such as Latin American debt, were raised at earlier stages, but the important and unique issue of re-privatization was only raised at the highest levels in 1988–9. When the revolution came in late 1989, the Hungarians were perhaps better prepared than anyone else to consider the practical application of Western economic theory in order to transform their economy. Vietnam, another small state, only began to learn lessons of reform in the late 1980s, and when it did so, the emphasis was far more on the Chinese example. When finally shoved in the direction of reform by the Soviet Union and a crisis of legitimacy, Vietnam was prepared to move swiftly on at least some forms of economic reform. Indeed, the speed of the Vietnamese reforms suggested it had digested some of the best features from the Chinese and East European cases. Changes in agricultural policy in the pre-reform past had also been variations of Chinese models, but the changes of the late 1980s were real and radical reforms as the Chinese demonstrated that these worked well. Similarly, the approach to joint ventures and greater openness to the East Asian economy was in part a reaction to China’s successful experience. As two Soviet observers noted, Vietnam moved away from the more formal import-substitution model of development in part because it saw that other parts of East Asia, and especially the non-communist parts, were benefiting by doing so.40 Vietnam, like China, could not but be impressed that its non-communist neighbours in East Asia were managing to integrate aspects of market and command economies in a way that did not necessarily mean wholesale capitulation to international capitalism.41 But it is notable that Vietnam did not move down these roads until pressure was exerted by the Soviet Union. Unlike the Hungarians or Yugoslavs who pursued reforms for their own reasons, the Vietnamese had to be pushed. As the North Korean case shows, external pressure is not enough if the local will is not already present. However, the timing of Vietnamese reforms had a great deal to do with reforms in the Soviet Union and even a Soviet desire to improve relations with China. Thus we can see a vital link between the presence of a fertile domestic soil for reform and levels of pressure from the outside. The pattern seems to be that without the proper domestic conditions, seeds from the


outside will not grow. But it is also true that the simple exertion of pressure from the outside is more likely to lead to revolution than reform and in any case is less likely to work for the larger states such as the Soviet Union and China. Finally, it also seems to be true that the prospects for domestic reform are affected by the specific role played by the international system, and that nearly all of the cases we are considering have found themselves in different positions in the international system. Foreign direct investment The willingness of actors in the international system to invest in any state is a function of both the attitudes of the investors and the hosts. In the international economy as a whole, the pattern of vastly expanding foreign direct investment (FBI) has been a crucial part of domestic growth as well as the expansion of foreign trade.42 One of the more important reforms in foreign economic policy is the willingness to create conditions conducive to FBI, and China has led the way in attracting foreign investment into the communist world. By the end of 1989 China had entered into nearly 22,000 FBI contracts, with more than 48 per cent of the pledged value being used. Some $32 billion in commitments had been attracted, and in the peak year of 1989, when $5.6 billion was pledged, some $3.3 billion was being used. China not only led the communist world in attracting FDI, it was also one of the leaders in the developing world.43 This FDI made a major contribution to China’s own modernization programme, despite the fact that investment was often erratic and confronted major socio-economic problems in China’s domestic economy. Indeed, the ebbs and flows in China’s ability to attract investment was part of the general approach to economic reform. China’s economic theory about foreign investment followed the early practice in 1978–80 as China learned to cite the relevant portions of Lenin’s work on the New Economic Plan (NEP). The basic line was that because China remained a socialist state and the state was often the partner in equity joint ventures, thus the interests of socialism were safeguarded, while obtaining the best from the capitalist world. Pragmatism, or the strategy of ‘feeling the stones while crossing the river’, meant that there were identifiable phases when FDI flowed more freely. From 1979 to 1982 major efforts were made to obtain funds for the four SEZs. No serious effort was made to attract funds outside the zones and investors could not hold more than 49 per cent of ventures. In 1983–5 FDI was sought for the SEZs but also fourteen coastal cities and three deltas along the east coast—the so-called Gold Coast Strategy. Decision-making was decentralized and most FDI decisions no longer required central approval. However, tension soon followed as China’s search for capital and technology was met by investors’ complaints about problems in obtaining local credit, energy, raw materials and skilled labour. Decentralization also had


its problems: because of the lack of skilled Chinese administrators there were numerous redundancies in projects and some operated in less essential areas. Yet the tendency to allow local variations for local conditions, and local personal networks of politicians, meant a gradually liberalized approach to joint ventures and foreign investment, all the while under the essential guidance of the centre exerting at least some important controls. The retrenchment period of 1986–7 involved a sharp reduction in the amount of FDI. In the autumn of 1986 the government issued twenty-two provisions in order to improve the investment climate but investors remained wary. Foreign enterprises were allowed to swap foreign exchange among themselves but these minor measures did not deal with the wider problems that followed from rapid decentralization. The result was a more rapid reform. The Gold Coast Strategy begun in the spring of 1988 was meant to be accompanied by comprehensive price reform. But massive inflation alarmed the leadership and led to a further cooling of the ardour for FDI.44 Nevertheless, the reform effort of 1988 did result in more areas being opened to FDI, including Hainan island. China stressed its cheap labour and the fact that wholly-owned foreign ventures could be opened. Some foreigners were attracted by these reforms, especially those wishing to shift from increasingly expensive, labourintensive operations elsewhere in the booming East Asian economy.45 Some partial selling into the vast Chinese market was allowed, thereby increasing hopes that the huge potential of China might be opened to foreign investors. Indeed, it was a basic strength of the Chinese authorities when bargaining with foreigners that the lure of the larger Chinese market allowed China to impose tougher terms. Thus China’s strengths were often derived from its size and even Chineseness more than its socialism.46 Although the events of 1989 helped to cool the fever for FDI in China in 1990, it was already clear before the events of June that there were economic problems in continuing the rapid pace of FDI growth. Inflation, the bidding up of the cost of scarce labour, rising social discontent and differences between Gold Coast and interior were all reasons to slow the pace of FDI. Nevertheless, most Chinese leaders recognized that they had benefited from FDI and wanted it to continue. Although FDI constituted only 2 per cent of total gross investment in the decade from 1978, it had a much greater impact in the coastal regions where it was concentrated. Over 60 per cent of the gross investment in the SEZs and 13 per cent in the fifteen open coastal cities in the first half of 1988 was FDI.47 Most investment went into the service sectors which was essential to building the basis for further investment. The energy sector was the second largest FDI benefactor. In all cases the government’s tax revenue from FDI gradually increased. Needless to say, the greater access to technology from abroad and the positive impact on the trade balance were all major benefits from the openness to FDI. Although some regions, such as Guangdong, benefited far more than


others, such as Shanghai ($2.37 billion versus 360 million in 1989), the gains were still clear to see.48 The FDI also resulted in increased employment, for example Guangdong found that by 1988 Hong Kong capital employed more than 1.5 million workers (2 million in 1991), far more than Hong Kong’s own industrial sector.49 The Chinese success in attracting FDI was studied closely by the Soviet Union as it contemplated reforms of its own. Yet it was soon realized that the conditions in the two countries were very different and indeed so was the international investment climate. It would not be a simple matter of the Soviet Union passing the correct legislation and waiting for the FDI to flood in. Indeed the legislation for joint ventures with non-socialist partners was amended several times after it first appeared in mid-1986. Thus by December 1988 the permission to establish joint ventures no longer had to come from the Council of Ministers and could be granted by state enterprises. By December 1989 the permitted share of foreign ownership was raised to 99 per cent and the transfer of shares to a third party no longer required permission from government. Most crucially, joint ventures were no longer bound by Soviet labour law or rates of pay. From September 1987 the joint ventures were no longer banned from selling to the local market for hard currency and their purchases did not have to be through Soviet foreign trade enterprises. In a world of unconvertible roubles, the joint ventures were allowed to export goods other than their own products and to import goods other than for their own needs. This right was withdrawn in March 1989 when certain goods became scarce on the domestic market.50 The total numbers of joint ventures increased, although on nothing like the Chinese scale. By June 1990 there were over 1,600 registered joint ventures, although there was serious doubt about how many were actually in operation. Total foundation capital exceeded $5 billion.51 There was a clear connection between the loosening of legal restrictions and the number of joint ventures registered, but the comparisons with China still suggested that the Soviet Union was still not as attractive a place to do business.52 Leading investors came from the EC and the vast majority were in manufacturing. However, basic problems remained, including the uncertain politics and legal regimes, not to mention the absence of skilled labour, proper infrastructure and an unconvertible rouble. A Soviet economist wrote in June 1987 that ‘according to the most patriotic evaluation, only 17–18% of our manufacturing industry conforms to world standards’53 and thus there certainly was little incentive for foreigners to invest in Soviet manufacturing, even if it were in an SEZ. Of course, the Chinese conditions before reform were not very different, and thus backwardness was not in itself an excuse for lack of FDI. Nevertheless, in the Soviet case the creation of SEZs was nevertheless even slower than the pace of FDI. It was planned to set up zones at Vyborg near the Finnish border, the districts of the Maritime Territory adjoining Nakhodka, and


Armenia and the Crimea in the south. However, major debates surrounding the nature of these SEZs were slow to be resolved. Issues included the type of goods to be produced, the terms of production, and whether goods could be sold on the domestic market. Throughout much of 1990 there was much discussion of turning Kaliningrad into an SEZ, but as an ice-free port and now on the front-line with the outside world, the military were reluctant to allow such openness so close to a vital naval base. Although the SEZ existed on paper, the reality was no change. Plans to turn Leningrad into an SEZ were similarly tied up in complex politics when the idea of an SEZ was used more as a gambit in domestic politics than as an element in foreign trade policy.54 Only in the far east did the reality of SEZs begin to take shape. The far eastern zone in Nakhodka, established by the Russian parliament in October 1990, was granted the best terms to that date as part of an attempt to become seriously involved in the booming Pacific economy and attract South Korean and Japanese investment in particular.55 Construction of factory and warehouse space began at the end of 1990. But even in this case the War of the Laws has taken its toll.56 The Russian federation took the early initiative, the Union failed to follow up, the local government of the autonomous province assumed control which in turn provoked the Russian federation into taking a stronger interest. The export regulations seemed to be the greyest of areas and, of course, there were major uncertainties about the currency in use. One of the most persistent problems for the Soviet Union was the difficulty in shaping reform in the banking sector. As the Soviet Union increased its pressure on the West to offer more aid in the early 1990s, it became increasingly clear that there was no banking system in any shape to handle such funds. Attention then turned to providing technical help in setting up a banking system for a market economy. As Alexander Yakovlev put it during a trip to Prague in 1991, ‘We don’t have banking experts; our banks function only for storing money’.57 In January 1991, when the Soviet Union shifted overnight from ‘transferable’ roubles to dollar accounting in trade with former CMEA partners, there was a chronic lack of cash in part because of the unreformed banking system. Apparently, in an age of reform, incomplete reform can turn some reforms into disaster and, in this case, a greater degree of ‘closure’. Some suggested that a Western bank might run a hard-currency clearing system for Soviet trade to deal with these problems, but such banking aid smacked of the days when Britain ran China’s customs service. In this sense at least, the challenge of openness is older than communism itself. Thus Soviet efforts in the FDI field were bedevilled by many of the problems holding up other aspects of reform in Soviet foreign economic policy. Progress did seem possible in certain very narrow areas, but it became increasingly apparent that the major problem blocking reform was the lack of political will to adopt and implement a coherent strategy. China, which had real reform, may well have made, and still is making mistakes, but it has also achieved a great


deal more than any other reforming communist state. Vietnam is the only other country where FDI has been taken seriously as part of a reform programme. Foreign investment legislation in Vietnam in 1987 attempted to provide a framework for FDI but the continuing American boycott has hampered the process. Nevertheless, in 1988–90 Vietnam granted FDI permits of more than $1 billion to some 130 projects including six vital oil and natural gas exploration contracts. By 1991 Vietnam had agreed some 273 joint ventures, with capital of over $2 billion, of which 103 were in industry and 74 in agriculture, forestry and marine sectors, 55 in hotels and tourism, 23 in telecommunications and 12 in oil and gas. Until 1991 British companies led the way, accounting for $145 million of the value, by mid-1991 more than 60 per cent of the investment capital came from Asian countries.58 Some 80 per cent of the FDI was concentrated in the south which was seen as more economically dynamic.59 Vietnam has been particularly wary of joint ventures in the banking sector, although Vietnamese officials recognize the particular need for reform in this sector and realize that contacts with the international financial world may help in obtaining IMF assistance. To date the Vietnamese have been particularly anxious to keep foreign banks from financing domestic operations using Vietnamese currency, precisely the kind of operation that is of interest to the foreign bankers. Although the notorious inefficiency of the Vietnamese banking system has so far only been tackled half-heartedly by the Vietnamese authorities,60 two foreign investment funds have now been approved, with the first off the mark being the $30 million Vietnam Fund arranged by Lloyds Bank Fund Management and a Taiwanese investment house. Money will go into joint ventures led by multinationals. The second fund, led by Crédit Lyonnais, will invest in local enterprise.61 The six exploration contracts in the oil and gas sector accounted for the bulk of FDI with more recent interest shown in fishing, textiles and tourist industries. Until 1991 Britain was the largest non-communist investor while France was second.62 Japan had held back in accordance with American desires, but smaller Japanese firms in search of cheap labour began moving in 1991 in a more determined fashion as the political restraints started to be removed.63 The Soviet Union was an important joint venture partner in the most productive sector—the oil industry. The deal with Vietsovpetro in the White Tiger field involved exports to Japan, France and Singapore.64 The terms governing joint ventures in Vietnam compare favourably with those in the Soviet Union or China. Tax rates are the lowest of the three.65 Yet the legal structure is the least developed and causes the most concern among foreign investors. Equally the infrastructure is the least developed and the bureaucracy the most arcane.66 The American restraint on financing is also a major problem that affects lending from international institutions. Overseas Chinese have been able to prosper as investors in smaller scale enterprises because of their ability to operate local networks and their experience of dealing in the communist Chinese


system.67 The overseas Vietnamese community looks set to join this process, an advantage held by Vietnam and China which the Soviet Union lacked.68 The authorities in Saigon have established a Zone of Fabrication and Exportation where foreign companies are free to import commodities, assemble products with low-cost local labour and re-export the products.69 However, despite the obvious potential to repeat the Chinese success, Vietnam has yet to develop the potential for SEZs based on low-cost labour plugged into the East Asian market. Nevertheless, in comparison with Hungary and the GDR, Vietnam has been successful in attracting FDI and joint ventures. Hungary has allowed joint ventures since 1972 but until recently the terms were not attractive to Western firms. New regulations in January 1986 and 1987 liberalized the conditions of operation with taxes reduced and majority foreign holdings allowed.70 By mid-1988 there were some 250 joint ventures, bringing in some $300 million of capital. New legislation in December 1988 gave foreigners full protection against nationalization and the number of joint ventures rose to 870 with FDI of $450 million, mostly in trade, tourism and the service sector. In October 1988 the Hungarian parliament passed a new law on business organization which created the possibility of joint stock companies and 100 per cent foreign ownership. It opened the way for a stock market but foreigners would be confined to special ‘named’ stocks which involved more red tape.71 In 1989 companies were sold to Western firms but by the time of the democratic revolution later in the year, the scene was set for far more sweeping reforms. There had been insufficient time to see if the latest round of reforms regarding FDI would have much effect. Neither the GDR nor North Korea saw much reform in the area of FDI, although for different reasons. The GDR was always more open in the sense that there was greater financial assistance, in official and disguised forms, although it was not part of a strategy of FDI. Given the wealth of West Germany and its determination to pay to keep contacts with the GDR open and even to buy out citizens of the communist regime, it was always likely that the GDR would have a unique relationship with the capitalist world, mediated by West German policy. By contrast, North Korea had far fewer contacts with a South Korea far less wealthy than West Germany. It has been suggested that North Korea did toy with the notion of some economic reform in the form of opening to FDI in the 1980s, but the evidence is far from persuasive.72 Despite a joint venture law in 1984 it proved ineffectual beyond enhancing contacts with the small community of Koreans in Japan. North Korea’s ideology remained one of self-reliance. China’s press reported that in the first 12 months of the law, ten joint ventures had been agreed and talks were still going on for thirty others. Of this total, twenty-six were with Western firms (eighteen from Japan). However, it soon became clear that only a handful of loyal North Koreans were prepared to make investments


and the subsequent default by North Korea on debts ensured no further business would be done. In comparison to the GDR and North Korea where there has been no significant FDI, Hungary must be counted, along with Vietnam, as a country that did take the prospects of FDI seriously. But only in China has there been sufficient time to see the evolution of policy towards FDI and, despite ebbs and flows, the general picture is of real reform. The Soviet Union seems set on the same course, although with even more problems than in the Chinese case. A crucial feature of all approaches to FDI is the attitude to the value of currency. As China abolished many aspects of guaranteed price stability at home, budget deficits appeared and inflation ensued. Thus exchange rates had to be adjusted in order to maintain a competitive edge in attracting mobile international capital. China chose the strategy of regular currency devaluations in lieu of a fully convertible currency although it evolved special currencies for foreign use as a concession to the international market economy. Unofficially the RMB remains linked to the United States dollar. An attempt at a dual exchange rate as in some Eastern European states was dropped in 1985. But Guangdong province already has a de-facto second currency, the Hong Kong dollar, which is formally pegged to the United States dollar. Between 15 and 20 per cent of Hong Kong’s currency was believed to have been circulating in private hands in Guangdong in 1989. The lack of foreign currency has been a problem for joint ventures and has led to acceptance of the IMF idea of Foreign Exchange Adjustment Centres, where enterprises can sell foreign currency at higher rates of exchange. No other country has been as flexible as China when it comes to manipulation of its currency. The Vietnamese dong and the rouble remained unconvertible, although both currencies were effectively devalued in order to provide a more realistic rate of exchange. The Soviet Union held foreign currency auctions both to test the real value of the currency and to learn about the operations of the international money markets.73 Both China and the Soviet Union investigated commodities markets with foreign advice, although there were particular problems in allowing foreigners to trade on these exchanges.74 Nevertheless, the Chinese case suggests just how far reform of foreign economic policy can go without establishing a fully convertible currency. While a fully capitalist banking and security system might also be seen as useful parts of a full marketized economy, there is still much that a communist state can do short of sweeping domestic reform if its objective is to become more interdependent with the international economy. Both Poland and Yugoslavia had some limited success with internally convertible currencies so long as the regime was based on fixed exchange rates and the convertibility was limited to the current transaction and the citizens of the country in question.75 But China chose to stress the regular devaluation of its currency and in 1991 there was a series of small such


devaluations. The Soviet Union suggested by its devaluations in the same period that it too recognized that the first condition of an effective internal convertibility package was a realistically low exchange rate for the domestic currency. Of course, failure to control inflation would make it impossible to maintain a fixed exchange rate. As is evident in developed Western economies, there obviously are close relations between internal and external economic policy. But as is also evident in these market economies, the conditions of specific markets are often so variable that the specific aspects of a country’s foreign economic policy are bound to vary in important ways. Thus there is no full and necessary link between domestic and foreign reforms, although it does seem that in many respects the linkage between domestic and foreign policy is closer in the economic realm than in any other. Foreign trade It is almost a requirement of our definition of foreign policy reform that the range of trade partners increases. This is not the same as saying that the ratio of foreign trade to GDP should rise, for China in the Soviet model period was so heavily dependent on a few trade partners that all the higher figures showed was strong dependence. East European ratios before 1989 were higher than those in Western Europe, but that merely showed forced integration among a narrow range of partners. Although the slogans spoke of mitigating the problem of ‘capitalist encirclement’ and avoiding the ‘anarchic market forces’, these states were not able to minimize the impact of the outside world if that was understood to include other socialist allies. Foreign trade was never merely fulfilling a residual role for the East Europeans, if only because trade policy was in part a tool of the Soviet policy of maintaining the cohesion of the bloc. The elimination of most market mechanisms ensured that the trade that was carried out could be fixed at unreal levels. As the quip has it, ‘we sell them two dead cats and they sell us one dead dog’. The resulting bloc autarky was every bit as unreal as that for an individual state. The CMEA framework tried to create such absurdities as a Hungary producing iron and steel despite the virtual absence of iron ore or coking coal.76 Not surprisingly, the East Europeans were usually dragged, kicking, screaming and sabotaging, into most of the CMEA system where the results were arbitrary trade relations not based on world-market competitiveness, technological achievement or up-to-date standards. Other smaller communist states, such as those in East Asia, had similarly distorted patterns of trade. Yet all were less developed than the East Europeans and trade was a smaller percentage of GDP. East Asian communist states also had fewer major trade partners and their dependence on China and the Soviet Union was that much greater. When the two communist giants fell out, the


relative balance of trade with Moscow and Peking also took on political significance. However, China was never able to offer the kind of comprehensive assistance that the Soviet Union could, and so the dependence of the East Asians on the Soviet Union was every bit as intense as that of the East Europeans. Reforms in the 1970s which involved extensive borrowing by the East Europeans from the West was unhappily sanctioned by the Soviet Union on both political and economic grounds.77 When the West was so foolish as to make dubious loans to unstable economies the Soviet Union contained its concern as long as it knew the East Europeans would remain within the Soviet sphere. When the debt burden grew heavy and economic crises deepened, Western banks pulled out and/or imposed heavy terms. The East Europeans then became even more dependent on the Soviet Union and, of course, the domestic reforms were stalled. Poland even collapsed into crisis and martial law. The Soviet Union could have done without such crises, but its more conservative leaders could feel satisfied that the East Europeans knew they had to get on with the Soviet Union because the West would not bail them out.78 It was not until 1989 when the Soviet Union allowed the East European regimes to stand, or more properly, fall on their own, that fundamental change in external economic relations became possible. Only when Communist Party rule was gone did the West promise substantial aid, finance and the opportunities for radically re-oriented trade patterns. To be sure, none of these changes would happen as fast as those in the GDR, but real change in trade ties did in fact depend on revolution rather than reform. Similar trends were not evident in East Asia, and perhaps not even in the Soviet Union. China demonstrated that domestic reforms could be accompanied by a substantial reform of the patterns of trade. China’s open door policy developed more distinctly after 1978 as the number of trade partners expanded and the ratio of trade to GDP tripled to a level higher than that in Japan.79 By the mid-1980s China had risen from 32nd to 14th place among world exporters and by the late 1980s China became the fifth largest trader in the Pacific basin and was closing in on South Korea. By 1990 the Chinese trade surplus with the United States was larger than that of any single American trade partner except Japan. China was increasingly tied into the complex pattern of trade and investment in the Pacific, and when even Taiwan grew concerned about its trade surplus with the United States, it shifted investment to China as a way of finding cheaper labour and less political flak for its exports to the United States. China became Japan’s third largest trade partner and was attracting investment from all over the booming region.80 The Special Economic Zones along the coast were attracting heavy investment from Hong Kong and overseas Chinese and in general China’s entry into the lower wage end of the regional economy was encouraging the ‘hollowing out’ of many older industries in a number of East


Asian states. If only by virtue of its size, China’s entry into the international economy was a significant impact of the domestic reforms. Unlike most developing states China’s exports do not depend on food and primary goods. In 1988, 69 per cent of exports were manufactured goods and the extent and speed of China’s adjustment to the halving of its oil export earnings suggest the benefits of a command economy, at least in some respects. The import structure was also adjusted by, for example, using joint ventures to build cars in China, thereby satisfying 80 per cent of its domestic car needs by 1988. These changes in trends were the direct result of an avowedly experimental approach to foreign trade where small case studies were expanded by central fiat to apply to the country as a whole. International organizations played a vital part in this experimentation, especially in helping to establish feasibility studies and managing foreign debt. In contrast with the first thirty years of communist China, the nature of modernization was being defined by international standards and the international market. This is illustrated by China’s bias towards trade with the West and its willingness to accept Western procedures such as the use of the German standardization system for goods and the World Bank and OECD systems for accounting and foreign trade statistics.81 Hong Kong in particular played a vital role in drawing the Guangdong region into the international system and some even came to describe the region as a proto-NIC.82 No other country in our survey has found its trade policy changed quite as dramatically as China. Although the Soviet Union made many noises about similar reforms, the reality was very slow in catching up. In East Asia, the Soviet Union found some marginal but potentially important changes in its trade patterns. Sino-Soviet trade grew rapidly and China became the Soviet Union’s second most important trade partner in the Pacific (after Japan). The Soviet Union moved to fourth among all China’s trade partners by the late 1980s. But the Soviet Union also caught the drift of pragmatic politics and opened trade links with South Korea and Taiwan in the late 1980s, neither of which at the time had diplomatic relations with Moscow. Like China before it, some trade reform moved ahead of diplomatic reform for the sake of domestic modernization. In Europe where the vast majority of Soviet trade was concentrated, there were less obvious immediate reforms in the reality as opposed to the rhetoric of foreign trade. The overall Soviet share of world trade actually fell from 4.6 per cent in 1983 to 3 per cent in 1989. In 1983 the Soviet Union occupied sixth place in world trade tables but by 1989 it had slipped to twelfth. The share of EastWest trade in world trade actually fell from 1.8 per cent in 1970 to 1.6 per cent in 1982.83 Despite its size, the Soviet Union was clearly poorer for its autarkic approach to trade. The main feature of the pattern of Soviet foreign trade, and the main explanation for its declining share of world trade relates to its vast exports of raw


materials and the falling prices for such goods. In the more recent period of reform the transfer to hard currency trade with CMEA members in 1991 led initially to a sharp drop in overall trade. Between 1972 and 1983, the total hard currency earnings from energy exports increased from 29 per cent to 80 per cent.84 An opportunity to pay for reforms was lost, or more properly, the windfall reduced domestic pressures for reforms. According to Soviet finance minister Boris Gostev, the Soviet Union lost 40 billion roubles in 1985–8 because of the sharp drop in world oil prices.85 Changes in currency values also meant the value of Soviet exports—apart from oil—also fell in this period. Without a major switch to industrial production that could be measured against international standards, there was unlikely to be little real improvement in the structure of Soviet trade unless energy prices changed. Without a domestic environment of ‘hard budget constraints’, exporters were unlikely to produce competitive goods and joint ventures would not thrive if they were merely grafted onto this inefficient economy where real prices were unknown.86 The strong tendency to import-bias and export-aversion remained in place in the Soviet economy. With vast uncertainty about who actually ran the Soviet economy, it became even more difficult to see how the path to substantial reform could be traversed. The system of ad hoc, but still powerful intervention from above on micro issues made any real reform in the policy towards exports hard to imagine. Far more than the matter of convertible currency, these microlevel problems hampered reform. The share of industrialized Western countries in Soviet trade was 33 per cent in 1980 and fell to some 22–26 per cent in the Gorbachev era. Comparable figures for China’s trade with OECD states are three times higher. The Soviet trade deficit also grew in these years, while a surplus was run with CMEA states until 1987, when falling energy prices also sent this aspect of trade into deficit. From 1991, Soviet trade with CMEA members was conducted using world prices and hard currency settlements. By early 1991 it was clear that the Soviet Union was rapidly losing its good credit rating as an international trader. With a balance of payment deficit of some $15 billion and no sign of a sharp increase in raw material prices, the crunch was painful. Unrest in Azerbaijan and Siberia—key oil producing regions—merely made matters worse as oil production fell. Foreign debt had climbed from $29 billion in 1985 to 60 billion according to Soviet deputy foreign minister Ernst Obminsky.87 The debt-service ratio rose from under 8 per cent in 1986 to 15 per cent in 1991. Foreign exchange reserves were falling but short of a major injection of foreign finance, the import bill had to be cut if a crisis was to be avoided. Of course, the vast majority of investment in the Soviet economy came from domestic sources and no likely amount of external aid could make up for the failings of the internal economy. Indeed, it was the failure of this domestic


investment to get a good rate of return that lay at the heart of the general economic problem as well as that in foreign economic relations.88 Thus with stagnant prices for natural resources the pressure for real reform in the Soviet foreign economic policy was clear. It seemed that the real limit was the slow pace of economic reform in the Soviet Union. After years of complaints about COCOM regulations, it seemed that East-West trade was really constrained by sound business considerations and latterly by the related fear of instability in the Soviet system. It was remarkable the extent to which developed OECD states’ trade with the Soviet Union was a relatively low percentage of their total trade, with the notable exception of Germany. This was all in striking contrast to the way OECD states, or even the Soviet Union, were often able to register real rates of growth in their trade with China in the 1980s. Vietnam showed a different link between changing trade patterns and domestic reform. The pre-reform policy of close and unnatural reliance on CMEA trade was rapidly being jettisoned in the last half of the 1980s in favour of closer integration with its Indochinese neighbours and the more developed states of East Asia. Trade patterns grew more diversified in the late 1980s and even airline links were rapidly proliferating as foreigners flooded particularly into south Vietnam to look for the next untapped economy of the Pacific region. The Soviet Union accounted for 60 per cent of Vietnamese trade during the CMEA era but revolutions in Eastern Europe, as well as domestic pressures in Vietnam, led to major changes in the direction of trade. As the 250,000 Vietnamese workers in Eastern Europe were being sent back, Vietnam had to move quickly to finance its foreign trade.89 In January 1991 the Soviet Union ended the barter basis of trade with Vietnam and insisted on foreign currency settlement prices. Bilateral trade was expected to be nearly cut in half by 1992 as a result. Failings in the Soviet economy were already leading to failure in the Vietnamese economy as Soviet exports, for example of fertilizer, failed to materialize.90 Soviet aid was also cut and tough terms were set for repayment of debts. Vietnam was only slowly emerging from the isolation of the period of close alliance with the Soviet Union. Hanoi was seeking a more constructive part in the regional economy of East Asia, despite American attempts to keep Vietnam isolated.91 Japan developed as the major capitalist trading partner, and trade links with Taiwan and South Korea were also being developed.92 Because of domestic reforms there was a sharp increase in agricultural and marine product exports, and Vietnam’s deficit in trade with the convertible currency states dropped.93 Remittances from overseas Vietnamese were about $200 million per year, which hardly made a dent in Vietnam’s large foreign debt, but the major progress made as a rice exporter suggests that domestic reforms can have a swift impact on foreign trade; rice exports accounted for 20 per cent of total foreign currency earnings in 1989.94


Vietnam’s progress in reforming its foreign trade pattern contrasts with that of Hungary which at first achieved success, and then seemed to stall. Hungarian trade with the West increased throughout the 1970s at a rapid pace. By 1980 exports reached 1,334 per cent of their 1970 level, while imports rose even more rapidly. Trade deficits were recorded each year. Trade with CMEA countries expanded at roughly half the rate and trade deficits were also recorded in most years. By contrast in the 1980s, Hungary was constantly in surplus with the CMEA, mainly due to the fall in the oil price. Trade with the West was virtually stagnant with imports rising only 16 per cent by 1987 over the 1980 level and exports up 167 per cent reflecting emergency efforts to cope with high levels of debt. The commodity composition of trade shifted during the 1980s, symptomatic of the crises at home and in the CMEA. The share of industrial machinery exports to the CMEA grew to 55 per cent from 48 per cent in 1980 while such exports to the OECD barely increased from 12 to 12.8 per cent. A key export item in this period was fuel, which was re-exported from the Soviet Union, but falling prices also hurt Hungarian trade. Thus despite periodic attempts at reform at home, the pattern of Hungarian trade seems to have shown no real reform. The GDR, which had no real reform at home apart from the special case of the Kombinat policy, also showed little change in foreign economic policy. During the 1970s the GDR built up trade deficits with both CMEA and the OECD states. By the early 1980s it had become one of the most indebted countries of the bloc, but its highly advantageous arrangements with the Federal Republic allowed it to weather the debt crisis caused by the Polish crisis with relatively little destabilization of the domestic economy. The slowdown in growth was markedly less acute and the standard of living was protected. The centralism of the economic system proved an advantage in the early 1980s in retaining control of the basic economic processes which in Hungary were mismanaged or inadequately controlled. Imports were effectively controlled and trade with the West was in surplus after 1981. This does not indicate success in running the economy, except in the narrowest terms. A degree of balance was restored in the short term but at the cost of further isolating the country from the world economy. The GDR and Czechoslovakia enjoyed the dubious distinction of being the two countries in the CMEA which, despite being the most developed, had by the mid-1980s a much smaller share of CMEA trade with the West than they had in the mid-1960s. In 1965 the GDR accounted for 14.7 per cent of CMEA exports to the West and 17. 2 per cent of imports: by 1983 the respective shares had fallen to 12.2 and 12.3 per cent. In most respects the GDR appeared to have become a more closed economy than before the 1980s. This was the result of a conscious policy, in contrast to the Hungarian case where a broadly similar pattern was the result of


an unmanageable economic crisis which forced the government into emergency measures. North Korea had no reform in its foreign trade policy, not even of the marginal kind seen in its attitude to FDI. In 1984 its ratio of exports to GNP was 7 per cent, well below Hungary’s 21 per cent and South Korea’s 32 per cent. For a small country this was a very low figure and testament to the ‘success’ of the policy of self-reliance, even as regards its communist allies of China and the Soviet Union. Serious debt problems in the 1980s were part of the problem, but the main block was a political leadership dead-set against any openness to the international economy. To some extent, as in the case of China before the late days of Mao Zedong, North Korea felt its national variant of socialism was providing sufficient goods to legitimize its rule. As the rest of East Asia grew rich around it, and many former allies in Europe abandoned Communist Party rule, the illusions were harder to maintain. Thus the patterns of trade and investment of reforming communist states seems relatively clear. Without reform, little sustained increase in trade, finance or aid is possible. Chaotic or unsustained reform only leads to brief and erratic increases in economic relations with the capitalist world. Now that the Soviet Union and the East Europeans have had their revolution and seem determined to explore new economic relations, it is likely that trade patterns will undergo major changes, although this is far less self-evident in the case of the former Soviet Union. Chinese reforms have already transformed bilateral relations in the region. China has developed a vital need for an open door, and the East Asian region looks as though it will soon develop a vital stake in a stable Chinese economy. MULTILATERAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS The most striking feature of the international economy is the extent to which it is dominated by the global market economy. Only one regional economic organization, the EC, has proven able to transform trade relations among its partners and as a result has attracted additional members. By contrast, in Eastern Europe, as we have already noted, the CMEA was an artificial creation made no more stable by the forcible trade relations. The prime focus of the CMEA was on imports as the demand for imports was set by the rate and pattern of growth as defined in the national economic plan of each member. With persistent political pressure to set high growth rate targets, the demand for imports was virtually insatiable. On the other hand, each state had an interest in limiting exports to the minimum necessary to cover the import bill because of the pressures of domestic demand generated by the forced pace of growth. This was always an artificial system that prevented an open approach to foreign economic relations. Although it was recognized eventually that some trade with the OECD states was


inevitable, it was assumed that this could be restricted to about 20 per cent of total trade turnover. By the end of the 1970s the pattern of trade of CMEA states was coming under considerable pressure. The cost to the Soviet Union of subsidizing its allies’ energy consumption was a major problem. The resulting pressures on the CMEA forced individual states more onto world markets which further weakened CMEA linkages. Powerful domestic producers were often strong supporters of the CMEA system which made far less demands on the quality of their products. But the East Europeans were also experiencing increasing problems in trade with the West. A large increase in imports led to debt, while exports stagnated. Then drastic cuts in imports produced a sharp economic downturn at home which in turn further restricted exports. Further borrowing was impossible due to high levels of debt and major domestic reforms were impossible because of the perceived political costs of austerity. The revolutions of 1989 were built on the basis of these dilemmas. It was always likely that real economic reforms in Eastern Europe would lead to the demise of the CMEA structure, even if certain important trade links between its former members are retained for some time. Raw material exports from the former Soviet Union are likely to continue. Yet a number of East European states are clearly intending to make their way as swiftly as possible into the EC-dominated world. The GDR has the quickest and most painful route via a takeover by West Germany. But these are all now cases of revolutionary transformation and can no longer be described as reform of the Communist Party system. The fate of the other case of revolutionary transformation—the Soviet Union— is even less clear than that of the East Europeans. The Soviet Union had a large domestic economy that could not be so closely integrated into the global economy for decades to come, and then only if there is sweeping and successful reform. Having lost its dependent trade partners as export markets for secondrate machinery, the Soviet trade structure became even more dependent on raw material exports. Like Australia or Canada, there is a niche in international interdependence for such an economy, but it is necessarily unstable when the price of primary products fluctuates as it does. With its vast frontiers, the Soviet Union, or more specifically, Russia, has the prospect of being involved as an actor in the global economy, serving at least as a notional land-bridge between Europe and East Asia. But the basic architecture of the international economy is the three-legged structure of Europe, North America and East Asia with very little else likely to intrude. The curious picture of a Soviet Union almost pleading for even an observer’s place at the London G-7 meeting in July 1991 indicated just how far the Soviet Union was from anything like a normal role in the management of the international economy. The international economy did very


well without the Soviet Union, and thus it had little need to make major adjustments to fit it in for the twenty-first century. The basis of the Soviet appeal for a place at the G-7 table was more to do with the risks of collapse of the Soviet economy than any positive sense of a Soviet contribution to shaping a new international economy. Like the case of developing states who threatened to create a debtors’ cartel in the 1980s, the Soviet Union was best seen as a developing economy whose collapse would endanger the stability of its neighbours. The Soviet Union recognized its difficult position and took a far more positive approach to the international institutions of the global market economy. It can be argued that the single most important international institution for the Soviet Union was the EC, for the Soviet Union was coming to recognize that as its superpower status faded, it was finding a new role as a Eurasian power with a strong European bias. Of course, the Soviet Union had long regarded the EC as a hostile institution but ‘unofficial’ Soviet academic experts began changing their views as early as the 1960s.95 An IMEMO study noted the trend to integration and the benefits it was bringing to member states, but it was not until after 1985 that the real breakthrough in relations with the EC became possible with the broader changes in the ideology of the Soviet Union. There was increasing talk of a ‘negotiated process of social accommodation’ and the rejection of class struggle. The EC was now seen as a partner rather than a competing pole of power, especially if the Soviet Union was to take the idea of a Common European Home seriously. The EC-CMEA common declaration was signed in June 1988 and at the end of 1989 an EC-Soviet Union accord was signed on trade and economic cooperation. Diplomatic relations were established and high level delegations were exchanged at regular intervals. By 1991 the Soviet Union’s relations with the EC were more developed than with any other international economic institution. From the EC’s point of view, the fate of the Soviet Union was vital in any consideration of the stability of Europe and the future options open to the former CMEA states in Eastern Europe. The risk of major migration from the Soviet Union and the concern with a conservative backlash all exercised the planners in the EC who were trying to shape a post-1992 world. From the Soviet point of view, the EC was emerging as a vital forum for the hammering out of major policy for the continent which it sought to join. EC states also controlled major funds that would be essential to any pattern of future OECD-led investment in the Soviet Union. It was an essential feature of the Common European Home notion that the Soviet Union both wished to become part of the prosperity of the EC and to invite the EC into the Soviet Union as a way of encouraging reform at home. While the Soviet Union did not expect to become fully integrated into the Community, it was in no doubt that the EC was both a source of assistance and trade, and might even be a model for a loose federal structure in the Soviet Union.


Of course the Soviet Union still saw itself as more than just a European power and thus also placed priority on an openness that establishes contacts with the more global institutions of the international economy. Eduard Shevardnadze reportedly regarded IMF membership as ‘a logical continuation of its policy of wider involvement in global economic cooperation’ which was part of a more broadly open Soviet approach to international interdependence.96 While full IMF membership was held out to the Soviet Union as a prize to be awarded when significant economic reform was achieved, the Soviet Union had already made progress in finding a seat in the GATT. Official interest was stated in an application for observer status in 1986 as the Soviet Union recognized it had some way to go before its internal policies were reshaped in a way that stood some chance of meeting the GATT’s terms for an open economy willing to participate in an open trading system.97 On 16 May 1990 the Soviet Union was admitted as an observer. The Soviet Union’s intention was both to further its own foreign economic relations, but also to help to bring some of the methods of the international market economy into the Soviet Union. Similar calculations were at work in the Soviet participation as observers in the Asian Development Bank (since 1987).98 When the Soviet Union was granted observer status in GATT it was asked to report regularly on progress in economic and trade reform. Its first report in March 1991 provided detailed evidence of progress but it was also clear that the Soviet system remained a long way from the criteria of openness necessary for full GATT membership.99 It was also noted that the official Soviet report to GATT claimed that by the end of 1990 more than 37 per cent of total production in the country was accounted for by republican and municipal authorities (4.5 per cent in 1985) and as this decentralization continued, the same Soviet Union that was seeking GATT membership had decreasing control over its own economy. Membership in the IMF was a much trickier proposition because of the dominating role of the United States. There is no observer status in the IMF and this body had for so long represented the hard-line approach to the international market economy that Soviet membership required a full commitment on Moscow’s part to an open foreign economic policy. The credits from the IMF would obviously have been welcome, but membership would have meant participation as a medium-size state without a seat on the executive board. Recognition of this lowly status was hard for a once-superpower to accept. And yet by mid-1991 the Soviet Union knew that it had a great need for IMF assistance, both technical and financial, and it had little power to negotiate membership on anything but IMF terms. Some Soviet officials spoke of the ‘threat to collapse’ and thereby destabilize international relations, but the G-7 meeting in July 1991 merely offered the Soviet Union special IMF status that would have meant access to technical expertise but no funds. Talk of a Grand Bargain in which institutions such as the IMF would manage the dispersal of


billions of dollars in the Soviet economy were not being offered by the capitalist world and the Soviet Union had little choice but to get on with its own reforms. The international community was offering no short-cut to real reform. China and Vietnam, like the Soviet Union, are much more likely to be changed by the international economy than able to reshape it in their own image. China joined the IMF in April 1980 and the World Bank a month later. It became part of the multi-fibre agreement in 1984 and joined the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 1986. China made its GATT application in the same year but its prospects are mixed up with the application from Taiwan and the Western restrictions on economic relations with China after the Peking massacre in June 1989. The World Bank has played an important role as adviser and provider of funds to China’s domestic reforms. While China joined the international economic community, the community also entered into the heart of the Chinese economy. Advice from the Bank has helped to shape the reforms and China has also become more forthcoming with the provision of data in accordance with World Bank and IMF rules. The size of China’s debt has been monitored by the IMF and despite the boycotts after June 1989, contacts have been maintained as China gets over the debt hurdle of the early 1990s.100 While China is clearly more integrated into the international economy and its institutions, Vietnam is still struggling to overcome diplomatic barriers held in place by the United States. As the United States began to ease its attitude towards Vietnam over Cambodia in July 1990, there were prospects for Vietnam to follow China into a closer relationship with the institutions of the international economy. Vietnam also holds out some hope of growing closer to the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), even though it remains a less than successful body in terms of economic integration. Hungary has been a signatory of the GATT since 1973 (Poland joined in 1967 and Romania in 1971) which was a reflection of the GATT’s attitude to smaller East European states and Hungary’s recognition of the necessity to open the economy. Hungary’s main motive for joining the GATT was to get key trade partners in the EC to end discriminatory quotas. Disappointed with the response to its regular complaints, Hungary concluded that only direct talks with the EC would resolve its problems.101 In November 1981 Hungary applied for membership in the IMF and the World Bank which some observers saw as an important move in declaring independence from Moscow.102 Hungary was also searching for a solution to its debt crisis and the approval on 6 May 1982 to join the IMF and on 7 July to join the World Bank was fortunately timed. Loans soon followed which allowed Hungary to weather the immediate crisis while retaining the confidence of the West. Western bank lending resumed in August 1982 when a syndicated loan was obtained on the Eurocurrency market.


Thus Hungary managed to be the only communist state in all three of the major market economy institutions. But as the very different cases of Hungary, Vietnam, the Soviet Union and China show, simple membership is far from enough to either bring about major change in foreign trade or in the pattern of domestic reform. The experience of Vietnam suggests that membership in these bodies is not essential for reform, and the case of Hungary suggests that membership is something less than a guarantee of reform. In sum, China, more than any other case, demonstrated that it was possible to have substantial reform of foreign economic policy. By most of the measures of reform, China has been able to change its place in the international economy far more than any other communist state. While most observers would accept that this openness in the Chinese case, and indeed the less far-reaching cases of the Soviet Union and Vietnam, can be explained by a complex mix of internal and external factors, it is far from clear how these two sectors interconnect. There certainly seems to be no necessary causal link between aspects of domestic and foreign policy reform. As China has demonstrated, it is possible to find a distinctive mix of domestic and international factors that makes its reform of foreign economic policy feasible. It is true to say that the international system can have an important impact in shaping the reforms, and yet it is most evident when domestic politics and international system are moving in the same direction. There is what might be termed a ‘strain to consistency’ which suggests that it is easier to have reform of foreign economic policy when there is domestic reform. However, the ranges of reform are so wide that each case of reform ends up being more distinctive than consistent with a general pattern. What is perhaps most striking is the range of policies that can be pursued by a country such as China and the extent to which it can respond to pressures from the international system without comprehensive reform at home. Certainly in comparison to the East European cases, the Chinese determination and ability to find a solution short of total collapse of the communist state is a powerful challenge to those who would argue that there is basically only one path of reform. CONCLUSION The foreign economic policy reforms can be set out briefly, with some tentative explanations why these reforms took place. Only four states (Vietnam, Hungary, the Soviet Union and China) could be said to have reformed their official stance with respect to the international economy and understanding of their place in the international division of labour. In each case, with the possible exception of the Soviet Union, it seems that this reform took place after the basic reforms at home were under way and there was a search for assistance from the outside world. But as is also clear, acceptance of the features of the international economy did


not necessarily lead to an abandonment of the basically command economy at home, even though features of a market economy were introduced. It is also clear that only China became a much more important actor in the international economy. The Soviet Union actually lost ground in time of reform, as did the East Europeans. China did so well because it was able to make use of its low-wage economy and export light manufactured goods to the global economy. Debt was always kept within manageable levels. When inflation grew, the centre reasserted control for a time but the essential marketizing reforms remained in place to take up the growth rates when the restraints were removed. Regional variations in reform made for a far more flexible system. The patterns of FDI also suggest that China has led the communist world in reforms. China developed a range of ways to attract FDI and a willingness to change its practices when necessary. The presence of overseas Chinese and Hong Kong also played a crucial role in attracting FDI. Successful reforms at home were important in both China and Vietnam in convincing the outside world that FDI made sense. The absence of effective reforms in the Soviet Union was a major problem in attracting large-scale FDI and support for membership in international organizations. Membership in international economic institutions was seen by the reforming state as part of its reforms. But the simple act of joining these bodies did not solve any deep-seated problems on its own. Advice and aid was helpful to the reforms but could not overcome internal obstacles on its own. Real decentralization of decision-making only took place in China to any extent. The Soviet reforms were never fully developed but it did look as if the larger countries saw the transfer of greater power to regional bodies as an essential feature of reform. Smaller and more ethnically homogeneous states like Hungary found it less necessary to decentralize and therefore opportunities for basic reforms were limited. Yet the case of a divided Vietnam suggests that regionalism of some sort can be a useful part of the reforms in smaller states. Setting a more realistic value for the currency was a vital reform. China made frequent efforts in this regard and the Soviet Union and Vietnam began to undertake similar action. The causes of changes in currency are a mix of internal and external factors. Reforms in the legal system were also essential to encouraging FDI and even trade. China, Vietnam and the Soviet Union were most responsive to the needs of the international market economy because they wanted continued FDI and an expansion of trade. Reform in banking and securities seems to be among the last of the domestic reforms and much reform in foreign economic policy can be undertaken without these more specialized reforms. But both sectors can be useful as additional ways of encouraging FDI and enhancing integration in the international economy. Foreign economic policy has really only been reformed in one state—China. Other cases either had signs of reform, such as Vietnam, pre-1989 Hungary or


the pre-August 1991 Soviet Union, or else showed no signs of reforms (the GDR and North Korea). China’s success is easy to prove but hard to explain. Certainly prolonged domestic reforms set the proper atmosphere for reform of foreign economic policy. As a non-rival of the United States, China avoided political problems blocking Vietnam and the Soviet Union, and with its overseas Chinese, regional differences, and the special case of Hong Kong, FDI was always easier to come by. In addition, its larger size gave it more scope for experimentation. In sum, China had a mix of advantages which made reform of foreign economic policy possible. But as a unique mix, there was no Chinese model that could replicated. This seemed to be a case of a distinctive Chinese economic culture which evolved on a basis of traditional economic practices, but also in response to the distinctive international economic conditions in its East Asian region.103 In sum, with the demise of Communist Party rule in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the implications of these conclusions become of direct relevance only for the communist states of East Asia. If there is one particularly striking conclusion from the evidence produced above, it is that while comparisons are useful in illuminating issues, they basically reveal the need to study each country on a case-by-case basis. There certainly seems to be little evidence, especially in terms of reform of foreign policy, that China or even Vietnam must necessarily follow the route of the Soviet Union or the East Europeans. China in particular has demonstrated a remarkable success in reforming its foreign policy. It has formulated a distinctive reaction to the pressures of the international system and is struggling with its own path towards reform at home. The specific reasons for these Chinese policies are too complex to fit into a single model, and certainly not one that is directly applicable to other states. Political culture plays an important role in marking out the East Asians as different from the Europeans, but the nuances in that culture, as well as other factors, suggest that even in East Asia there are distinct limits to the transferability of ‘lessons’ about reform.

2 DEFENCE AND SECURITY POLICY Gerald Segal

Creating greater openness in defence policy is not nearly as straightforward as opening economic policy. Whereas the advantages of greater interaction with the international economy often seem more obvious, it has usually been more difficult to demonstrate that interdependent security is better than a more simply defined national security. Unlike economic openness where there are market forces urging greater openness, the defence sector tends to be controlled by wellconnected and powerful interests which have a stake in keeping their activities closed. But when openness in other realms such as economics helps to create a more plural political system at home and abroad, it is only natural that defence policy will also be opened up. Of course, as we saw in the previous section, the process of opening up will tend to be distinctive in each state. This is particularly so in defence policy because the particular challenges posed by the international system tend to be more acute and perhaps even more varied. Those states who do begin to open their defence policy then face a range of options of how far to allow their security to become interdependent with others and how much demilitarization can be safely tolerated. The specific answers that emerge in each case reveal a great deal about the connections between domestic and foreign policy and the range of options available to individual states. One major problem in the analysis of defence and security policy which highlights differences between cases is the matter of defining the national interest. The case of the Soviet Union is particularly difficult in that the state was not a nation and as the ‘union’ dissolved during the reforms, it proved particularly difficult to define anything that might be called the national interest. Differences between the republics, let alone within republics and the federal authority, arose over what kinds of policies, for example on arms control or territorial compromise, would really be in their interest. China, by contrast, had no such problem. Apart from the issue of Tibet and parts of Xinjiang, the coherence of a Chinese national interest was never seriously threatened. In fact, to the extent that this issue arose, it concerned cases such as Hong Kong,


Taiwan, or the South China Sea, where China was united in seeking the return of these territories to its control. As for the smaller states in this study, the matter of national interest was more clear than in the case of the Soviet Union, although far less easy to pursue because of their weaker position. As we shall see, the East Europeans knew full well that, especially in security terms, their national interest was defined by the Soviet Union. Only when the Soviet Union decided to give up its outer empire did these states have the right to choose their own future, although the case of the GDR was special because it was the weaker part of a divided nation. Vietnam, which had managed to reunify the Vietnamese people, had fewer problems of this sort, but it too was hampered by the fact that it depended on its ability to manoeuvre between China and the Soviet Union in order to pursue its national interests. The reduction in Soviet assistance in the late 1980s was instrumental in forcing Vietnam to redefine which of its interests were achievable. The states in our study also differ in that they operate on different levels of international security. Only the Soviet Union took part in START and INF (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) talks and only China and the Soviet Union were nuclear powers. The European states took part in the CSCE (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) process but arms control was virtually non-existent in East Asia. For these reasons, and indeed because of a vast range of other differences between the states concerned, it soon becomes clear that there are major differences in the security policies adopted by the different states. It has been suggested that all states operate with a distinctive ‘strategic culture’ and that an understanding of that culture is essential to an appreciation of why states operate differently.1 Much as ‘economic culture’ or ‘political culture’ features in other parts of this study, so ‘strategic culture’ is an important part of the explanation of the course of reforms in defence and security policy. Before we turn to an analysis of why the reforms of defence policy were undertaken, it is useful to outline what appear to be the basic reforms. The Soviet Union reformed its defence policy by withdrawing first from Afghanistan and then, much more importantly, from Eastern Europe. Vietnam also withdrew from Cambodia. China, by contrast, seized territory (which it claimed as its own) in the Spratly operation in 1988. The Soviet Union also reformed its defence policy by cutting back its military operations beyond its home territory, especially in naval deployments. Once again, China did the opposite. The Soviet Union, the East Europeans and even Vietnam cut their defence budgets. China has both increased and decreased its defence spending since 1979. But all these countries have cut the size of their armed forces. The Soviet Union took a more positive role in arms control negotiations and to a much less extent Vietnam has also demilitarized its foreign policy by tacit arms controls in Indochina. Chinese policy has been more ambiguous. The Soviet

DEFENCE AND SECURITY POLICY 63

Union became more willing to support collective security through United Nations involvement in the peaceful settlement of disputes. China and Vietnam have moved in this direction, although less far. The Soviet Union’s and China’s transfers of arms were not initially reduced in an age of defence policy reform. When reductions eventually came it had far more to do with a change of policy on the part of the recipients rather than the donors. The Soviet Union increased contacts between its military professionals and those in a wider range of states, especially with Western countries. China has done the same, and Vietnam is beginning this process. In general the Soviet Union was willing to accept far more transparency than previously on military matters, as have China and Vietnam to some extent. The Soviet Union sought less tight alliance unity in confrontation with military rivals. The East Europeans took advantage of such demilitarization. The Soviet Union’s armed forces stressed greater professionalism. China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has done the same and Vietnam’s PAVN looks like following suit. DEFENCE POLICY REFORM Most students of international security seem to see the pressures of the international system as crucial to determining a state’s defence policy. It is usually asserted that the West can force an adversary to change its policy, although part of this school of thought would argue that carrots rather than sticks are more useful in bringing about a change of policy. Needless to say, like the arguments about the role of the international economy, such an approach gives insufficient attention to the role of domestic factors in determining reform of defence policy. Civil-military relations Defence policy is not made solely by military officials. Military professionals participate in a broader political process which includes the making of defence policy, and of course the military officials will tend to have greater say in areas of their own expertise.2 The result is a very complicated decision-making process, particularly in states such as China and Vietnam where the revolutionary leadership has not quite passed from the scene. These revolutionaries were so used to the close connection between military and political power—Mao said political power grows out of the barrel of a gun—that the separation of civil and military authority was not well understood. As China demonstrated in the unrest of 1989, ultimately the party still depended on the military to defend communist party rule.3 In the case of the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, and to a very limited extent even North Korea, the armed forces of the Communist Party were crucial


participants in the struggle to make the revolution. Although the civil war in the Soviet Union and to some extent in North Korea and Vietnam took place after the revolutionary state was proclaimed, the reality was that without a successful armed force, the Party would have lost power. Both Vietnam and North Korea also benefited from ‘fraternal assistance’ from China and the Soviet Union. As a result, the relationship between Party and army was complex, with many officials wearing more than one cap at a time.4 As the armed forces of the Soviet Union were professionalized under Khrushchev, they grew more remote from society. On the one hand, the armed forces were removed from many aspects of civil affairs and thus this early reform did achieve an important degree of demilitarization. The Soviet military was also transformed into a natural participant in politics, with far more freedom to determine defence policy on its own.5 By controlling the information necessary for making sensible defence policy, the armed forces managed to exclude many rivals (although not the CPSU) from the defence policy process. Most studies of this period note the anecdote about Soviet SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) negotiators from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs obtaining information on Soviet deployments from their Western counterparts and not from their colleagues in the Soviet armed forces.6 Thus it was always going to be harder for pluralism to develop within the Soviet Union on defence matters, and often the most lively debates about the nature of Soviet defence policy took place outside the country. While few would doubt that the Soviet armed forces were run by some of the most professional officers in the world, the implications of such professionalism in a closed society was that defence policy was particularly closed. When comparing the Soviet armed forces in the 1960s to China or Vietnam, it is clear that such professionalism in the Soviet case meant little openness and little opportunity for a reduction in the influence of the armed forces, at least on matters of defence policy. Indeed, it can be argued that the far less professional Chinese PLA was far more open because of the stress on political accountability. As China was still ruled by its revolutionary generation, the close intertwining of civil and military authority made it much easier to control what might otherwise have been a powerful military voice. Vietnam and Korea were another type of case. Because both countries were in various degrees of states of war, they were both under heavy political control and highly militarized societies. This created a particular type of closure in defence policy because the argument for a rigid definition of national security could be more easily made and sustained. In the smaller East European states, there was yet another variant of civil-military relations. In Hungary, and especially the GDR, the armed forces were so heavily penetrated by the Soviet Union that they were a major feature of the Soviet control mechanism in Eastern Europe. The domestic civil-military relationship was thus far less important because the main


levers of power were to be found outside the state. Indeed, as we shall see throughout this section, the defence policy of these East European states was so heavily penetrated by the Soviet Union that it often made little sense to analyse defence policy in a national context. In the 1970s, the extent of professional military dominance of Soviet defence policy reached its peak. The pattern of the SALT negotiations, reactions to conflict in the developing world and above all the narrowly based decision to invade Afghanistan all suggested the extent to which although there was a sharper division between civil and military authority than in most communist states, the result was still a military-dominated national security decision-making process.7 In China, Mao’s part of the CCP called on the PLA to intervene in politics in order to seize control from radical Red Guards and restore order. The gradual disengagement of the armed forces depended on the establishment of stable civil rule in China, and with the purge of the Gang of Four in 1976 and the emergence of Deng Xiaoping as dominant leader in 1978, the retreat of the PLA from civilian politics was made possible.8 Civil-military relations began to evolve in a direction more akin to the Soviet Union in that professionals were given greater credit for their expertise. But unlike the Soviet Union there was little evidence that the armed forces were allowed to dominate defence decision-making on the basis of their professional expertise. Again, to quote Mao, ‘the party must control the army and the army should never be allowed to control the party’. Vietnam and to a lesser extent North Korea remained heavily involved in military confrontations and their civil-military relations underwent little change.9 Similarly, the East Europeans remained heavily penetrated by the Soviet Union, although in the era of détente in the early 1970s it was more possible for a degree of independence in some minor aspects of defence policy. Similar divergences were also apparent in the early 1980s, but at a time when a relative intensification of the Cold War worried many East European regimes, including that of the GDR. Nevertheless, the basic pattern of civil-military relations in these states remained unchanged. Following China’s de-facto defeat in the war against Vietnam in 1979, the modernization of China’s defence policy was sought by most of the PLA and most of the ruling party. The fact that leading PLA officers apparently opposed the invasion of Vietnam and Soviet officers supported the invasion of Afghanistan said a great deal about the differences in the two states. In the Chinese case the military was both less professional and less powerful. But the PLA was also interested in a more peaceful foreign policy, at least until it became more professional, better armed, and therefore more likely to succeed in combat. As a result of the defeat in 1979, and a long-standing desire for reform, the PLA was slimmed down and encouraged to focus on narrow professional interests. As part of the more general attempt to distinguish party and state roles, the PLA was


encouraged to think less about politics. But was this professionalism a sign of reform? Like the Soviet military reforms of the Khrushchev era, such trends to professionalism were often really about making the military a more closed institution. Professionalism seemed to mean less penetration by civilian (party) officials and thus a military doctrine could be developed that might not be to the liking of civilian officials. However, it was not necessarily clear that professionalism also had to mean a greater say for the military interest group in civilian decision-making as was the case in the Soviet Union. It seemed to be a crucial difference between the two communist great powers that at least in this matter, China looked more like many Western states which had a low profile for their armed forces in foreign policy making. Of course, the use of the PLA in Peking in June 1989 demonstrated that at least in internal affairs, China was a communist state with loyal armed forces which could be used to defend Communist Party power. Trends similar to those seen in China were apparent in Vietnam in the late 1980s. But also in the later 1980s the Soviet Union seemed to be moving into another phase—this time one that could be defined as openness which included significant demilitarization of politics and society. Let us now look at the changes in the past decade in more detail. DEMILITARIZING THE ECONOMY In 1979 China failed to achieve its objectives in its brief border war with Vietnam. As a result of the war, China had to increase its defence budget to cover the costs, but it was also interested in moving forward with the strategy of Four Modernizations, only one of which was in defence policy. The armed forces felt particularly hard done by as they knew that they could not simply continue to obtain a greater share of the defence budget, even though the PLA had not sought a war in Vietnam and was shoved into the conflict by the civilian leaders.10 It seems that an explicit deal was struck between senior PLA officials and Deng Xiaoping. If the PLA allowed modernization of the economy to take priority for a few years, then the overall state budget would grow quickly enough to finance increased defence spending.11 When coupled with reforms in the PLA itself, it was thought that military professionals would soon find they were getting more ‘wreckage for the yuan’ and a greater say on how the funds were allocated than in the days of more political control. Indeed, defence spending as a percentage of total government spending fell for much of the 1980s, although the absolute total of spending began increasing in the late 1980s and the spending-per-soldier increased very clearly after the PLA was slimmed down by one million men in 1985–7.12 This was a neat compromise between military


professionals who wanted greater recognition of their interests, and civilian leaders who wanted less spending on defence and more focus on economic growth. However, the vague part of the deal between Chinese economic reformers and the PLA concerned the point at which the economy could be said to have grown sufficiently to justify an increased share of the defence budget.13 At least some military officials seemed to argue by 1988 that the time had come to share more of the wealth with the patient soldiery. Indeed there was evidence that in that year the drop in the PLA’s percentage of the budget was halted. But late 1988 was also a time of economic crisis with inflation bursting out of control and a subsequent decision on economic retrenchment. In 1989 the PLA was called in to save the majority of the Party from protestors in Peking, and to allow the civilians to deal with the serious economic crisis in China. By 1990 it was clear that the PLA had made their point and an anxious civilian leadership was unwilling to antagonize the top brass for any longer. The PLA’s share of the state budget began increasing, although it is unclear just how much was a political pay-off for a job well done in June 1989. The debates and early indications in 1988 suggested that the decision to satisfy the PLA’s financial demands was taken before the Peking massacre, although few surviving civilian leaders after the June events would doubt the need to keep the PLA happy. These decisions were, of course, taken entirely within the context of domestic debates and had virtually nothing to do with foreign policy (apart from a limited concern with foreign support for dissidents). The upshot was increased defence spending at a time of reduced economic growth. Unlike the Soviet Union when it was trying to pursue a reform policy, in China defence policy could be said to have grown more militarized and less open. The picture in Vietnam is not so clouded by domestic unrest, and focuses much more narrowly on the competing demands of the broader economy and the military which accounted for a major chunk of state spending.14 Of course, Vietnam is a special case because it has more or less been at war since the foundation of communist rule. The need to fight the French, the Americans and then the Cambodians and Chinese left no room for a major domestic economic modernization programme as seen in China in the 1980s. But by 1986 and with the gradual consolidation of power in Cambodia, the Vietnamese began to look more seriously at domestic economic priorities. As in the case of China, the armed forces had to be cut in size and defence spending reduced. As we shall see, ‘friends’ such as the Soviet Union encouraged such readjustments in priorities. In December 1989 the Vietnamese defence minister Le Duc Anh complained that the military received only two-thirds of the budget approved by the Politburo. As it was, 70 per cent of the military budget was spent on feeding and housing soldiers. Half the army has been demobilized from a high in 1979 of 1.2 million soldiers.


So far, Vietnam has not reached the stage that China did in 1986 where the armed forces began to draw the line against the cuts.16 As in China, the armed forces did not like all aspects of the new policy, but they recognized that the new priorities were correct in principle, even if some details had to be adjusted. As in the case of China, the back-chat over the cuts was tied up with changes in foreign relations and debates over which states posed a threat to national security.17 Although unlike China, Vietnam did have continuing and pressing military security problems, for example in the South China Sea, and obviously concerning Cambodia, the Vietnamese economy had reached such a pathetic state by the mid-1980s, and the security environment had improved sufficiently, that some cuts in defence spending were possible.18 The only other case where such issues were raised was in the Soviet Union. As we have already noted, the Soviet armed forces were already much further down the road of professionalism than those in China and Vietnam. They had already won large chunks of the state budget and, despite a declining economic performance, were able to hang on to their share. Indeed, herein lay the crux of the difference with the Chinese. China had a relatively successful economy at the time when they demanded sacrifices by the armed forces, and so there were some grounds on which to be optimistic about absolute levels of spending. But in the Soviet Union it was precisely the collapse in the economy that required sacrifices by the armed forces, with promises of brighter days well ahead in the twentyfirst century.19 Details about Soviet defence spending were much debated, and we now know even more about how unreliable the figures always were. To some extent the perceived rise in defence spending merely represents a better understanding of just how much of the Soviet defence burden was hidden in other parts of the economy. Yet there is good evidence that defence spending had been cut since 1988.20 The military budget passed by the Supreme Soviet in 1991 was an increase of some 25 per cent on paper, but given the collapsing state of the economy it seems fair to say this was a decrease in real terms. Arms control, at least in the short term, was adding to military costs—for example in re-locating Soviet troops leaving Eastern Europe and Mongolia. Of course, it was not a decrease in the sense of the opportunity costs to other parts of the economy. It seems clear that this budget represented an attempt to retain the confidence of the military and conservative forces as a whole when delicate stages of transition in domestic and foreign policy were being managed. Yet it was also a testament to the strength of the Soviet armed forces that unlike the Chinese case where the military could be held off for some time in the 1980s, civilian leaders in the Soviet Union had to buy off military men at a time when they had little to spend on the economy as a whole. According to the American Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), military procurement in the Soviet Union fell by 10 per cent in both 1989 and 1990 but in


part because of the lessons of the Gulf war, spending on research and development was expected to increase. The DIA also reported that the Soviet Union completed 12 submarines in 1990, compared to 9 in 1988 and 1989: 1,900 anti-ship cruise missile in 1990, compared to 1,400 in 1988 and 1,600 in 1989. But no cruisers were completed in 1990 and only one destroyer was built, whereas one cruiser and three destroyers had been built in 1989. Some 1,300 tanks were built in 1990, compared to 1,700 in 1989 and 3,500 in 1988. Field artillery production dropped from 2,500 in 1988 to 1,850 in 1989 and 1,350 in 1990: Fighters and fighter-bomber numbers dropped from 700 in 1988 to 575 in 1990. The real trend was clearly downwards, although the overall scale of production still put Soviet military power in a class only surpassed by the United States. Although not the highest in the world, Soviet defence spending was well above the percentages common in the developed world. The Soviet economy was simply not efficient enough to continue draining the system to serve the armed forces. Neither were the reforms working fast enough to buy off even hard-core military professionals with a sense that modernization would bring them new technology in the near future. As the Soviet economy staggered into ever deeper crisis, the tension between civilians and the military over money was bound to grow tighter, if it was not for the fact that the economy was in such bad shape that most people recognized the priority was in getting some growth back in the economy.21 The compromise of the 1991 budget did not last long and the dissatisfaction in the armed forces were part of the reason for the abortive coup in August 1991. As conservative and radical forces fought for power in the society as a whole, the position of the military was both important and sometimes difficult to define. Of course, it was hard to slash the military budget when the armed forces were a crucial player in a power struggle. This was also the case in China in 1989–90. But as was also true in China, the military was a mostly conservative institution with professional pride. It was not in the interest of the professionals to see so much decline in the economy that new technology could no longer be obtained and sufficient funds could not be spent on modernization. Among the younger officers, radical voices were heard favouring reform if it would eventually lead to a leaner and fitter Soviet Union. In both China and the Soviet Union these debates were more finely balanced in harder economic times, but as China was at least achieving a decent rate of economic growth, the younger professionals could be more confident that they could strike a deal to satisfy both their own needs and the necessity to have a growing economy. Defence spending in the other states in this comparison can be dealt with much more briefly. North Korea continues to maintain some of the highest percentages of defence spending of any state, but then it has also failed to adopt any serious reforms. The GDR’s defence spending in the 1980s was one of the highest


percentages in the Warsaw Pact although there is some evidence that earlier in the decade, the East Germans, like other East Europeans, were reluctant to increase spending when asked to do so by Moscow. In the GDR, ever a special case, there was an argument that by increasing defence spending as desired by the Soviet Union, they would increase their leverage in the Kremlin. But in the era of Gorbachev, the GDR was not asked to make military cuts and it was only after the revolutions in 1989 that such matters came to the fore. Although Hungary was always less penetrated by the Soviet high command than the GDR, it too saw little change in defence spending until the 1989 revolutions. One distinctive feature of defence policy reform in the two largest countries is the question of conversion of the defence economy to civilian production. In these centrally-planned economies, few policies epitomized the irrationalities of the old system more than the way in which the defence sector distorted the overall economy by siphoning off resources and skills. The resulting opportunity costs for all the economies, especially in the Soviet Union, were massive and in the long run damaging to the international status of the country. The Soviet Union became a superpower on this basis, but a one-legged superpower because of the crippling effects on its economic leg. China never sought to divert so many resources in its civilian economy, but it too suffered from the war-time mentality of a command economy. Between 1957 and 1977 some two-thirds of capital investment in China went into projects in the so-called ‘third line’ regions— areas in the hinterland to where China shifted defence production in order to be better prepared to wage the people’s war in depth.22 During the era of reforms, decentralization and demilitarization in both countries have helped to sever the link between the military and industry, but the process is extremely complicated.23 China’s defence industries were always famous for turning out bicycles as well as bombs, but the conversion of the defence industry has gone much further in the decade of reform.24 As the military also showed in the decade from 1978, civilian production in the defence sector increased at an annual rate of 19.8 per cent. In 1990 civilian products accounted for 65 per cent of the total value of defence industry output.25 Entire enterprises have been sold off, thereby taking them off the defence budget and freeing resources to be poured into competitive bidding in research and development.26 The armed forces therefore get better value and can focus on their primary needs. Defence industries formerly located in the interior in order to enhance survivability in keeping with the doctrine of the people’s war, have been set up closer to major centres of industry and where they can benefit from spin-offs from newer technologies and expertise brought in to the civilian economy. Military professionals are no longer forced to take economically irrational decisions for the sake of some grander civilian strategy of economic redistribution. What is more, the defence industry has also been encouraged to produce more for export and even to go out and find their own


export markets. Profits have been funnelled back into the military budget and are no longer lost in the general state budget.27 Yet in the Chinese case, not to mention the Soviet case, the basic centralization of defence procurement remains in place. Indeed it can be argued in the Chinese case, reform in the sense of cutting back the size of the defence economy could only be achieved by centralizing control. Since 1982 the checks on this more centralized bureaucracy were multiplied, but under the circumstances this had the bizarre effect of reducing central control by adding more bureaucratic layers. Thus the Chinese experience suggests there is no direct link between reform and the number of institutions created.28 Conversion of the Soviet defence industry was far less well developed.29 Of course, the task of producing higher level technology was greater than in the case of China, especially considering the tougher COCOM regulations. While the Chinese armed forces have been able to benefit from high technology imports in the wider civilian economy, the Soviet Union was only beginning to develop such possibilities before the August 1991 revolution. Even Japanese firms, through the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), were being drawn into the process of helping the conversion of the defence sector.30 Of course, the Soviet ‘defence complex’ was always more integrated with the civilian economy than many analysts had suggested, but the stress of the reforms was to take the new technological innovation outside of the defence complex.31 Joint ventures in particular were seen as a way to ease the flow of technology around residual barriers of concern about Soviet military plans. There was expectation of gains simply when the defence sector released the expertise it controls in order to feed the civilian modernization.32 To be sure, this was not a simple matter of the factory that once made MIG-29s making sugar-packing machines, for transfers of technology are rarely so easy. The problem, much more so than in China, was one of a complete overhaul of the procurement and pricing system. There was little point in converting individual factories unless broader aspects of economic reform were operating. China was assisted by an already functioning economic reform and an already limited defence sector. As in China, the initial stages of defence conversion resulted in greater centralization, although some features of selffinancing were introduced on paper. In some cases parts of the civilian economy were taken into the defence sector in the hope that the defence industry could make a better job of running the enterprise. The senior leaders in the defence industry were all replaced by 1989 but the stalemate in the economy as a whole and the failure to resolve leadership disputes meant that this aspect of opening defence policy was placed on hold. The defence industry was clearly one of the most conservative sectors of the Soviet economy and the one least interested in opening up to a more marketoriented economy. Thus as debates raged between reformers and conservatives in


the early 1990s, it was not surprising that the defence industrial sector threw its weight behind the conservatives. The appointment of Pavlov as prime minister was powerful evidence of the strength of the conservatives. The results of the Gulf war in 1991 led these conservatives to argue that there were important limits on any conversion of the defence sector because Soviet equipment was in such dire need of modernization. If the Soviet Union was to remain a great power, and even if it were to remain a major force on the international arms market, there would have to be limits to conversion.33 The pause in the process of defence conversion in the Soviet Union demonstrated just how much decisions on these key aspects of reform were caught up in the broader debates about reform. The factors determining change were a complex mix of internal and external issues that were often impossible to disentangle. Defence conversion was certainly opposed by powerful domestic forces and when those forces were defeated in the wider reform debate, then hopes grew that the conversion might then resume. Real conversion essentially depended on a decision to demilitarize the Soviet economy and in effect accept a reduced status as a great power. This was a classic case of ‘imperial overstretch’.34 The reform in the Soviet Union also forced Vietnam to re-think its approach to defence conversion. The Vietnamese had essentially relied on Soviet supplies but when these began to dry up in the late 1980s, Vietnam had to expand rather than contract its own defence industry.35 Such expansion was no reflection on the absence of a will for reform in Hanoi, but it was an inevitable feature of the Vietnamese predicament. As in China, some parts of the defence sector were shifting to civilian production in order to make money in the more marketoriented economy. Some 62,000 soldiers, or 10 per cent of the Vietnamese military, was working full-time for sixty firms set up following a March decree of the Council of Ministers which allowed the armed forces to go into business. Some enterprises sell sand for Japanese beaches and the air force gets paid to fly foreign oil officials to offshore rigs.36 In sum, the debates over budget are crucial to an understanding of reform of defence policy in general and demilitarization in particular. Once the decision was taken in China, Vietnam and then the Soviet Union to focus on economic reconstruction, the old bread-versus-bombs argument meant that defence spending had to be cut. In other states under consideration such as Hungary, defence spending was kept low more because the armed forces were relatively unimportant and not because of any specific link to a policy of demilitarization. In China the promise was that more spending on bread would eventually mean that more could be spent on bombs. Vietnam and the Soviet Union were in a far more dire economic condition and promised their armed forces nothing but cuts for the greater good, at least for the medium term. Thus demilitarization in Vietnam and to an important extent also in the Soviet Union seemed far more real than it did in China. But in both the Soviet and Chinese cases, the military


remained an important player in politics and thus could not be ignored. The implication was that although demilitarization was limited for essentially domestic reasons, the result would be a still powerful armed forces with implications for foreign policy. In the Chinese case the risks to the outside world were greater because China, like the Soviet Union before it, was not a power happy with the status quo in the international system. Indeed, it is this latter factor more than the internal factors that makes such a difference in Chinese defence policy. Not all states with powerful armed forces in domestic politics have an aggressive foreign policy (e.g. most Latin American states). DEMILITARIZATION OF SOCIETY Of course, civil-military relations are not merely about shifting money from the military to the economy. Part of the way in which the military ‘earns’ its greater spending depends on a higher standing in society or at least a perceived need for powerful armed forces for the greater good of society. In Vietnam, so close in time to its revolutionary wars, there was far greater willingness to tolerate heavy defence spending and a special role in society for military men.37 Real wars, as opposed to Cold Wars, made the militarization of society more necessary, especially as the wars were being fought along the lines of ‘people’s war’ requiring the close ‘fish and sea’ relationship in order to overcome an enemy often superior in firepower. Thus, even as late as the mid-1980s, Vietnamese society remained heavily militarized. This revolutionary mentality was in stark contrast to Hungary where, since the 1956 uprising when the Hungarian armed forces fought for the revolution, the armed forces were consigned to the sidelines of politics.38 To be sure, they exercised with Warsaw Pact allies, but this was viewed as a necessary feature of Soviet domination and not connected to the honourable pre-war tradition of Hungarian military professionalism. Indeed, Hungarian society was perhaps the least militarized of any in Eastern Europe. The GDR, like North Korea, was a divided country, but there were still more contrasts than commonalities in the militarization of society.39 North Korea had fought a war with the South and still saw itself as in a state of war. Society was avowedly militarized as a way of maintaining vigilance against subversion from the South.40 By contrast, the GDR’s armed forces were the most penetrated by the Soviet Union and did not represent anything that could be called a national defence policy. Thus the acute national dislike of Russians ensured that there were some limits to the extent to which society would be militarized. But in part because the GDR was on the front-line, and in part in keeping with Prussian traditions, the GDR was more militarized than any of the other East European states, with, for example, military training in schools playing an important part in regular life.


Hence most attention should be paid to the reforming countries of Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union before the August revolution. Demilitarization of society in Vietnam has only just begun. Already there are obvious contrasts between the South, which has had far fewer years of militarization, and the North. The American occupation was of a chaotic kind that even encouraged people to think of ways around military authority. To be sure, southern Vietnam has little experience with law-governed society, but it does seem to be taking to the notion of priority on an easier social life and better ways to make a living. As a result, the problems of coping with demobilized soldiers in the new conditions has been especially difficult in the South, although in the North it can be said that the shock of the new policy seems a bigger change with the past. The Vietnamese press is full of stories of the hardships being suffered by soldiers, who lose their sense of purpose and whose living conditions are being hit harder than those of the population at large. The army press reported that only 35 per cent of those who left the army had found full time jobs. Special job-training schemes have been established for the mass of demobilized soldiers.41 In China, such demilitarization of society has been seen for much longer. Indeed, traditional China was well-known for its poor treatment of military professionals and seems to be far less militarized than Vietnam or North Korea. As the Chinese took to the economic reforms with such glee, especially in the countryside, the PLA immediately ran into social problems. Peasants wanted to stay out of the armed forces and make more money.42 Some skills, such as driving or electronics could be learned in the PLA, but the opportunities in the civilian market seemed to be opening up so rapidly that families did not want to spare their children when they could be used far more effectively in the liberalized rural economy. One of the ways in which the PLA sought to cope with this change in society at large was to join in the economic reforms with profit-making ventures of its own. It is perhaps an obvious point that sometimes needs to be stressed in this analysis that often different aspects of the reform come together and in turn create more powerful forces for reform. As the PLA controlled vast enterprises and huge lands and communication facilities, the obvious temptation was to turn military industry into profit-making ventures. The temptation was also evident in the rise in corruption, nepotism and exploitation of foreign contacts, for example in the lucrative arms trade.43 To be sure, these were problems in society at large, but the PLA had special advantages in the corruption competition. What is more, the PLA had a tradition of ‘plain living’ which was one of the bases of its support in the society at large. Stories of corruption hurt the PLA’s image harder and enhanced the calls for further cuts in the privileges of the armed forces. In comparison to the pampered state of the PLA before the reforms, the Soviet armed forces had even further to fall in terms of privilege and social status. China never had the kind of prestige from the massive military parades so


beloved of the Soviet armed forces. Neither did the armed forces control the Chinese civilian economy to the extent that they did in the Soviet Union. While the Soviet military’s reputation in society had been coasting downhill after the high point of the defeat of Nazi Germany, the soldiers’ honour had not been tested for decades until the invasion of Afghanistan. The displaced conflict of such exploits as the space programme was no substitute for battle scars in defence of the state. Yet the Afghan experience demonstrated that the new armed forces were not worthy of high social standing.44 Although individual soldiers fought bravely, they were soon seen as fighting not for the Soviet Union as much as for the folly of doddery leaders.45 As drugs and violence returned with the rotated soldiers, social problems in the country as a whole were seen as directly linked to military adventure. Needless to say, trainloads of coffins of war dead, in a war with no end that cost over $60 billion, led to reassessments of the role of military virtues. Of course, the impact of social attitudes is hard to measure, but it is fair to say that demands for the demilitarization of Soviet society was a powerful motive for the general demilitarization of Soviet foreign policy. On the other hand, there was also a counter-trend towards more radical militarization among those in the Soviet armed forces and society who felt they were betrayed by weak-willed politicians.46 As the United States experienced following the debacle of the Vietnam war, defeat is an orphan and radicalizes politics to more than one extreme. Had the Afghan venture turned out to be a success, then the domestic social impact might also have been very different. But the reality was that in part because of dissatisfaction at home about the Afghan operation, Gorbachev came to power with a ‘mandate’ to review this commitment, and indeed the wider question of the role of the armed forces in society. With the base of disaffection with military service, opposition grew when the troops were used internally against rebels of various sorts. The result was discrimination against soldiers which in turn encouraged draft dodging and hence an angry military hierarchy. A commission of the Supreme Soviet reported that some 3,000 soldiers a year died in non-combat deaths in the late 1980s. Suicide and hazing were major problems, especially for non-Russian conscripts. Problems increased in meeting conscription targets, especially in those republics which were most anxious to leave the union. By mid-July 1991, only 8.2 per cent of the draft cohort was inducted in Georgia, 12.3 per cent in Lithuania, 16.4 per cent in Armenia, and 30 per cent in Estonia.47 In both the Baltics and the Caucasus, the trend towards demilitarization of society was taken further than Gorbachev might have wanted, if only because it angered the top military brass at a time when the reforming civilian leadership had more than enough problems of domestic resistance. The result was a major push by conservatives to halt the reforms, with some success, at least until the August 1991 revolution. Whatever the case, the


demilitarization sapped the will of the armed forces to fight and this trend became an important issue in the wider debates about reform. The result was a more polarized political system which for a time at least halted the reforms in much of the defence sector. Of course, it is simplistic to talk of the armed forces as a single unit. The argument for demilitarizing society apparently had advocates in the armed forces, especially among younger officers who recognized the extent of the economic crisis and saw some potential benefits from new technology that might be obtained after sweeping reforms.48 The armed forces, at least to some extent, remained a mirror of the wider society and certainly could not be insulated from the swirling debates that developed in the age of reform. Yet for the vast majority of the armed forces, as indeed for society as a whole, the slow and chaotic pace of the wider reforms gave little incentive for those more technologically oriented officers to believe that the process of demilitarization held out more promise than problems. Some of these younger officers were pleased that the trend to greater Westernization was bringing in new ideas and the prospect of new technology. They were also pleased that the abuses of the old system were also likely to end with a change of the guard. But it remained an exaggeration to say that the majority of the officer corps were pleased with the resulting disintegration of society and social order. In sum, because the military had farther to fall in the Soviet Union, the demilitarization in defence policy was perhaps greater than in any other country. But the length of the fall, and the failure to find a better situation at the bottom, eventually meant that parts of the military lashed back at the unconstrained and undirected reforms. By contrast, the reforms in Vietnam were seen as taking place in more of an atmosphere of military victory and were appreciated as a necessary transition in order to enjoy the fruits of victory. In China too, the defeat in the 1979 war was merely more pressure for a change in the role of the military that had pre-dated the war and actually had strong support in the younger sections of the PLA. As we saw in economic matters, the failure of the Soviet reforms to produce much satisfaction of professional interests meant that there were more limits in the Soviet Union on what level of pain the targets of the reform might bear. Only the revolution of August 1991 solved the problem by discarding the old system. DECISION-MAKING None of the states under consideration could be considered to have been under military rule. But it might still be expected that demilitarization of defence policy would involve a greater role for civilian leaders and indeed public opinion at large. Yet while there has been an increase in civilian rule, in none of the cases of reform has there been a significant role for public opinion, although the


experience in the Soviet Union suggested that public opinion might have been of increasing importance. The reasons for the variable record of change seem to be different in each case. In China, at the peak of military power in the early 1970s, more than half the Politburo could be described as military men. But by the time the reforms got under way in the early 1980s, military representation was down to some 20 per cent, akin to its levels in the 1950s. With stability in the provinces, military authority was also scaled back. Regular rotations of regional commanders assured loyalty to the Party and the absence of ‘independent kingdoms’. Even following the leadership changes in 1989–90, the military did not increase its representation in top bodies of the Party or state.49 Neither is there any evidence that policies that required the use of force, either at home or abroad, were unusually affected by military demands. The war against Vietnam is a striking case where, if anything, the professional high command was lukewarm about the operation. The decision to use troops to suppress protestors in Peking in 1989 was also essentially a decision taken without a dominant military voice, although it is true that consultations with military men affected the timing and the nature of the use of force.50 All this non-dominance of military men in top decision-making suggests that a ‘natural’ level of military representation was found. The notion of military participation in decisions, especially those affecting their own direct interests, was the reality in China in the 1980s, as it had become in the Soviet Union since the early 1960s. Indeed it seemed to be part of the package of new relations that came with professionalism in the armed forces that meant professionals participated in professional decisions but otherwise tended to stay out of politics. In China, as in the Soviet Union, some senior military leaders spent so long in the top echelons of power that they became more politicized, and indeed developed interests different from those of more professional officers. Similarly, some civilian leaders developed such close working relations with the armed forces that they ‘went native’ and defended military positions.51 Professionalization of society and the armed forces, as we shall see below, is a complex aspect of reform in the defence sector. But at least in terms of decisionmaking, in China, the reforms ensured that there was relatively little demilitarization to achieve. Although the reforms in the Vietnamese and Soviet defence policy had less time to develop, they too demonstrated similar conclusions. Of course, professionalism of the Soviet armed forces is now over thirty years old, but the reforms before August 1991 only demonstrated just how much the basics of professional participation in decision-making was accepted as natural.52 To be sure, there was a desire in the Soviet Union to make the armed forces more accountable to the people, rather than merely to the Party. In the Brezhnev period the Soviet armed forces had gone well beyond simple professional


participation in politics, often exerting an undue influence on defence policy. The Supreme Soviet gradually took it upon itself to oversee the operations of the armed forces in order to reduce the influence of the Main Political Administration —the main political tool of the Party in the armed forces. However, the Supreme Soviet’s main effect on Party control of the armed forces was felt more in the indirect sense that Party rule in society as a whole was being slowly undermined, with the armed forces mirroring this wider trend. The Supreme Soviet also established links with the North Atlantic Assembly, in part in order to learn how the armed forces were controlled by elected deputies in Western states. There was also far more ‘independent’ research work done by civilian think-tanks on military issues, thereby providing more knowledge and undermining a major basis of past dominance by the armed forces in decision-making on military matters. In talks about a START accord in May 1990 it was clear that the armed forces were far less in charge of military matters than used to be the case before Gorbachev came to power.53 This process of civilianization had its limits when, as part of a broader backlash to reform, the military reasserted its voice. Foreign minister Shevardnadze resigned in part because the military was undermining his conduct of foreign policy, for example by violating the CFE (Conventional Forces in Europe) accord. The fact that it took more than six months to undo the damage and settle the CFE dispute suggested that there were distinct limits to civilian control, although the trend was towards a reduced military voice. It was suggested that when China was unable to control arms sales to the developing world that this was also an example of limited civil control at a time of broader debates about the nature and direction of reform.54 But perhaps these changes are best seen in the light of a general struggle that involves both de-communization as well as demilitarization of decision-making on military matters, especially in the Soviet case. It was increasingly clear that as the role of a dominant Communist Party diminished in decision-making as a whole, so too the role of Party control of the military, and the power of political commissars faded. But the military professionals were then more free to state their own views and thus opposition to a high military profile became increasingly based on the extent to which civil authority could control the armed forces. Under such circumstances it became much harder to talk of the Soviet Union as a communist state with control of its communist armed forces. Such a messy conclusions also suggests that although there was natural resistance from some parts of the Soviet armed forces both to the pace and direction of these changes, it was not just a civil-military split but more one between orthodox and liberal forces in the society at large. As the arguments began to resemble those in pluralist democracies, it was clear that the tension between secrecy and open politics was endemic to any state’s defence policy. Debates develop on a range of issues with the factions often dividing in different


ways. The line-up in many countries, communist or not, is different if the subject under discussion is military strategy, arms control, budgets, civil control, or the fate of the military industry. The different ways in which Britain and the United States handle the question of official secrets is testimony to the range of options on military openness and reform that are possible. Vietnam, like China, is nowhere near that type of openness. Military voices are still heard loud and clear in top decision-making bodies, in part as a confidence-building measure to assure the top brass that the changes are under control. But with far less time having passed since the revolutionary wars, the tendency of Vietnamese leaders to wear both civil and military hats is still far greater than in China and the Soviet Union.55 But if China and the Soviet Union are anything to go by, Vietnam too will find a natural level of military representation as a more professional body seeks its rightful place at the top table. As in China and the Soviet Union more than 90 per cent of the officer corps are Party members and, like China, the reforms do not include any change in this picture. But even more so than in China, the military in Vietnam has powerful supporters in the Politburo. In early 1991 two of the Politburo members were serving generals, two retired generals and at least three others were once political commissars. The percentage of military officials in the Central Committee fell from 16 per cent in 1976 to 8 per cent in 1986. In 1986, 14 per cent of all Party members were in the armed forces but, as in China, the percentage fell as reforms developed. Unlike China, the lack of a regional power base for the armed forces made them far easier to control as the reforms took hold.56 REGIONALISM It has been a central feature of our definition of openness that decentralization of decision-making takes place. Yet there is always a risk that such decentralization, especially in large countries such as China and the Soviet Union, will lead to regionalism and perhaps even separatism. As one of the major tasks of the armed forces is to ensure the territorial integrity of the state, regionalism may well lead to an enhanced role for the military. Indeed, such tension between reform and the integrity of the state was already evident to some extent in China, and to a vital degree in the Soviet Union. Of course, both China and the Soviet Union were empires, each having grabbed land and people whenever possible for centuries, well before the coming of communism. Yet because China’s expansion brought it territory and small numbers of people, unlike Russian imperialism which acquired a large population along with territory, China remained far more ethnically coherent, with a 92 per cent Han population as opposed to the 50 per cent Russian in the Soviet Union. Although more than half of Chinese territory was acquired less than three hundred years ago, much of the Russian empire was one hundred


years newer. Clearly the Soviet Union was always likely to face a far more pressing problem with regional diversity than China.57 Thus while China could concentrate on such unifying themes as reacquiring Hong Kong, Taiwan, or islands in the South China Sea, the Soviet Union was divided by disputes over whether to keep unhappy republics within a disintegrating Union. Only in the case of Tibet, and to some extent Xinjiang, did China have problems comparable to those in the Soviet Union. In the decade of Chinese reforms, decentralization of policy has involved the granting of relatively more autonomy on some matters to such poor areas as Tibet and Xinjiang, and such rich areas as the different parts of the coastal regions.58 While the richer regions have found satisfaction in economic interdependence, the poorer regions have released their anger on the occupying Chinese power. More liberal policies towards local religion and culture led some to believe that even more independence could be obtained. Greater freedom to contact the outside world led to wider knowledge about successful kin or even just other independence movements. In Tibet, martial law had to be imposed by the PLA as the public security apparatus proved incapable of controlling riots in 1989. In Xinjiang in 1990, unrest flared, apparently encouraged by similar uprisings across the border in the Soviet Union. The PLA, under the instructions of the central leadership, demonstrated the limits of reform. Under no circumstances was decentralization to mean independence. So long as no outside power did anything to assist the rebels, China was able to draw such a line, although blood had to be shed to maintain it. Yet China was also clear that as the Soviet empire proved less solid, then China found itself with a far more serious problem, especially in Central Asia. While Central Asian regionalism was not the primary threat to the territorial integrity of the Soviet Union, it certainly ranked as an important problem. However, it was the peoples of the Baltics and the Caucasus that posed the most imminent threat to the leadership in Moscow. As in the case of China, greater openness and talk of demilitarized politics encouraged people in the regions to believe they could take their future into their own hands. In the Baltics in particular, the imposition of Soviet control was still a matter of painful living memory and thus there was active hope for freedom. The fact that the Soviet armed forces failed to subdue the Afghan people, even under the tougher Brezhnev administration, led some to believe that they could break away from Kremlin rule. Freedom in Eastern Europe, without bloodshed, fed the fount of hope. As the outer empire in Eastern Europe was surrendered, force was used in the Caucasus and Central Asia, and to some extent in the Baltics. The main attempts to keep the Soviet dis-Union united depended on a complex political process that, by mid-1991, produced a tenuous, and ultimately unstable compromise that ceded power to the republican level. As the looser federation took shape, it became less likely that military force could hold the Union together. Military


voices were prominent among those calling for a policy of fighting for the Union, and in August 1991, at least some sections of the armed forces tried to undo the reforms. An important problem was that with a divided leadership in the centre, there were far more opportunities for independent action by various types of forces in the regions.59 Thus decentralization was an inadvertent outcome of leadership division. Certainly the growing opposition to military service in some republics only added to the anger in the armed forces and polarized the debate. In such an atmosphere there tended to be distinct limits on the trend to demilitarization, at least until the basic political struggles were resolved. In foreign policy terms, the result was often a stalemate in the leadership, or at a minimum a great deal of confusion. The ‘virtue’ of the hard-line crackdown in China in 1989 was that at least it produced more stable and understandable policies both at home and abroad. PROFESSIONALISM We have already suggested that professionalism of the armed forces can be considered a reform of defence policy. But as has already been indicated, this is a difficult judgement to sustain in all circumstances. If professionalism is defined as a concern with skills necessary to carrying out the task of ensuring territorial integrity and independence, then it should become clear that openness and demilitarization has its limits. Most obviously, demilitarization does not apply to the military as a profession, although a significant degree of openness can be expected of reformed armed forces. Indeed, the logic of demilitarization is that while the military influence is removed from civilian sectors of the economy, society and foreign relations, it should be strengthened in the narrower confines of professional pursuits. The problem with such a formulation is that the confines of narrower professional pursuits are far from precise. As we have already seen, the military responsibility for territorial integrity might well lead it to sound a klaxon of alarm about regional unrest well before a civilian leader anxious to support decentralization of decision-making. Is it unprofessional for a regional commander to argue, as was done in the Soviet Union, that demands for regional independence should be swiftly suppressed with military force? It is a professional matter, even though it is also a sensitive political question. On the other hand, in China in 1989 there was evidence that some military commanders were less than anxious to send in the troops to quell unrest that the Party leadership saw as stimulated in part by foreign agitators.60 In both cases, professional military judgements must be part of politics. In Vietnam, the massive transition from a war-economy to a more open reform pattern poses major threats to social order. Naturally, military men will voice their opinions and soldiers will complain about the effects on their lives.61 They


cannot be expected to hold in their anger, and the civilian reformers hope that letting off steam in the expectation that policies can be amended will keep the armed forces from doing something as unprofessional as seizing power. To some extent the threat of a coup hangs over all three of our major cases of states with defence policy reforms. As should already be clear from much of the previous analysis that has touched on professional issues, there is a wide range of specific professional concerns that are also touched by military reforms. For example, inter-service rivalry can be affected by demilitarization and changes in the nature of contacts with the outside world. By giving the armed forces less control over industry and a less powerful voice in procurement policy in general, the armed forces are forced to think about the impacts of markets on their own spending patterns. The old-style stress on massive numbers of weapons in place of quality is harder to sustain when the economy has other priorities for steel and scarce qualified personnel. When the economy is encouraged to focus on higher technology, then the air force, navy and even nuclear forces stand to gain. Such debates between ‘steel-eaters’ and ‘electronics’ have been a feature of pre-reform inter-service rivalry. The point is that reform tends to support the electronics school. Younger officers more interested in enhancing skills, and professional self-esteem will support a stress on high technology.62 Foreign engagements become more costly for all concerned, and weapons are far more for prestige than for use when they become too costly to replace. These indeed seem to have been the trends in the two countries able to decide such basic aspects of their defence policy—China and the Soviet Union. Vietnamese reforms, and the trend to greater professionalism there, are different in that they have been more clearly the result of a ‘shove’ from the Soviet Union. But the result has been similar in that Vietnam has begun to train a more professional officer corps and abolish the ‘dual-commander system’ which provided for power-sharing between officers and political commissars. Although commanders obtained more power, the broader economic problem in the country meant that it was harder to find qualified officers for the military elite’s Institute for Service and Technology.63 In December 1990 the length of military service was reduced from three to two years for members of the army in an attempt to woo ambitious people anxious to be trained. Chinese reforms, including the removal of one million men from the rolls of the PLA, have been specifically achieved by hitting the ground forces hardest. The navy has actually improved its position and seems to be the leading beneficiary of the reform programme.64 The expansion to a more blue-water naval strategy has been matched by a reduction of tension along the frontier with the Soviet Union. Although all services have received new equipment in the past decade, the most striking improvements have been in the navy. When matched by a stress on more rapid economic development of the coastal regions, China


becomes more of a complete maritime power and less obsessed about traditional threats from neighbours on land. As China also looks to the global and regional East Asian economy, the maritime orientation takes on greater importance and Central Asia becomes less important. The impact of the reforms on the professionalism of the Soviet Union’s armed forces was far less clear. The disengagement from the outer empire hurt the ground forces, as the withdrawal from out-of-area operations damaged the prestige of the navy. The penetration of Soviet airspace by foreign aircraft was taken as an opportunity to reform air defence.65 Only the nuclear programme escaped virtually untouched, but then it was always the part of the defence budget that provided the most rubble for the rouble. As in the case of China, it was likely that the general policy of demilitarization would support those stressing higher technology services. It certainly was part of the reformers’ appeal to younger officers that only wholesale reform of society and the economy could provide the newer technology necessary for modern defence and professional self-esteem. Guard duty in the former GDR or combat in Afghan hills was less preferable to these young professionals than service at home and practice on modern weaponry. If these professionals merely came home to internal guard duty and poor living conditions, then all services were more likely to unite in opposition to civil authority. Unlike the Chinese case where new professional satisfaction was being delivered by a growing defence budget, Soviet soldiers had far less to look forward to. There seemed to be a particular problem with the older officers, with many facing early retirement. There were also tens of thousands of officers returning from Hungary and Czechoslovakia, most of which had families living in conditions worse than those to which the officers had become accustomed.66 In the Soviet case particularly, the real test of professionalism was whether they could move from a conscript to a volunteer armed forces.67 The Gulf war in 1991 certainly demonstrated the advantages of such forces and in a time of economic stringency, a leaner and meaner military would make better use of limited resources. Officers would certainly be happier with their ‘raw material’, and those worried about the declining Slavic proportion in the armed forces could assume that a volunteer force would have fewer Central Asians. While the Soviet armed forces did not quite reach this level of reform before the revolution in 1991, they were not far away. Parts of the navy certainly experimented with forms of a professional force. A vital aspect of the creation of a more professional armed forces was the adoption of a military doctrine suitable to such a professional force. Yet, as students of strategy well know, questions of why doctrines change are hotly debated. The central issue is whether military doctrine shapes defence priorities or whether these priorities are set by civilians and the outside world, and the military professionals merely make the best of the real conditions. As we have


already suggested, the economic and social priorities have set the main context for China, the Soviet Union and Vietnam. Hungary and the GDR were constrained by Soviet policy as expressed through the Warsaw Pact. North Korea set its own strategy, but not entirely without reference to what China and the Soviet Union were prepared to tolerate. In the three cases where at least some measure of demilitarization took place— China, the Soviet Union and Vietnam—military doctrine evolved with the new economic constraints in very different ways. China has now had at least a decade of modern military doctrine, under the slogan of ‘people’s war under modern conditions’.68 Analysts do not agree on the full meaning of the new doctrine, but it seems to combine a degree of the old people’s war with stress on the poverty and populousness of China, with an emphasis on modern conditions of mobility and high technology. Combined arms operations have been developed and professional skills honed. Despite the upset of 1989, these new components seem to have been retained and the PLA is resisting the efforts of the politically conscious to return to greater stress on the political component of the old Maoist notion of people’s war.69 Professionalism in this new doctrine also means more stress on military education in academies and on training fields. More foreign contact is encouraged in order to get a better measure of China’s ranking and to learn about new ideas and technologies. Some foreign weapons are purchased as short-cuts to modernization. Arms are sold abroad in order to get money to pay for new hardware at home and in some cases even to obtain evidence on weapons performance. Less money is now spent on soldiers as the cut of one million men was implemented, and far more goes into research and development. Thus demilitarization in defence policy as a whole, means enhanced military professionalism in the armed services. China’s armed forces are now leaner and fitter than they have ever been, and at a time when the broader aspects of defence policy reform (see below) has made China more secure than at any point in the past several hundred years. Vietnamese doctrinal reform is neither as developed nor as obviously successful.70 Of course, China has been successfully deterred, but the pressing need for economic growth has made the Vietnamese armed forces far less happy about being shoved into adopting a new military doctrine. Like China, Vietnam still retains an affection for people’s war, but the PAVN is also in dire need of modernization. While it defended itself against China by use of people’s war tactics, it used more set-piece offensive tactics against the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. However, neither strategy will do against perhaps the most pressing military threat, Chinese encroachment in the South China Sea. The loss of some islands in the Spratlys in 1988, and the apparent re-capture of some in June 1989, suggests that Vietnam can stand and fight for its interests, but only if China is otherwise distracted or deterred. Vietnam looks likely to pay far more


attention to naval aspects of its defence doctrine, as the withdrawal of Soviet protection and assistance forces it to become even more self-reliant. Of course, even under Brezhnev significant changes were made to Soviet military doctrine without being part of a broader demilitarization of foreign policy. In the Brezhnev period, the stress on nuclear war as an unusable instrument of military policy was clearly the product of much earlier debates in the Khrushchev era which were then further developed in the reforms of the late 1980s. Under Gorbachev the view that nuclear weapons were not a usable intrument of policy became a more clearly accepted notion, and was joined by a new stress on sufficiency of military equipment rather than the more open-ended need to keep up with every revision in the technology arms race. As a consequence, Soviet officials began discussing and indeed even implementing asymmetrical cuts in weapons as part of an arms control process. Discussion of defensive defence doctrine was part of debates about the role of higher technology in new defence strategy and the need to focus on conventional rather than nuclear weapons.71 These issues were sharply focused for the reforming communist states by the conduct of the Gulf war in 1991. The destruction of mainly Soviet equipment (20 per cent of Iraq’s tanks were Chinese-made but of Soviet-style) in a war of devastating ferocity confirmed the worst fears of reformminded military men, especially in China and the Soviet Union. It was demonstrated that large numbers of soldiers and equipment were no match for ‘smart’ weapons of high technology operated by professional soldiers. The ‘lessons’ from the war suggested the need for higher technology and the research and development that makes such weapons possible. It also encouraged those in the Soviet Union who wanted a more professional military and an end to conscription. Supporters of airpower were also given a boost, as were those supporting more mobile ground forces. While some Soviet military men argued that their weaponry was not given a fair test in the war, the Chinese and the Vietnamese were starkly aware that their position more nearly matched that of Iraq. There could be no doubt that the war gave a boost to both those arguing for more defence spending, and those wishing to see more professional and more high-technology armed forces. Of course, for all the importance of theoretical debates about future strategy, the most far-reaching doctrinal revisions for the Soviet armed forces came as part of the package of ideas behind the abandonment of control of the outer empire in Eastern Europe.72 At least some observers suggest the basic decision to abandon Eastern Europe, with all the obvious implications for Soviet conventional and nuclear strategy, was taken as early as January 1987.73 Needless to say, some of the elements that were once considered fundamental aspects of Soviet foreign policy were abandoned as a result of the withdrawal from Eastern Europe, even though a more complete articulation of a new set of national interests for the Soviet Union was not achieved before the August 1991


revolution.74 Nuclear weapons policy remained virtually unchanged and the armed forces continued to argue about the potential threat to Soviet security, although it was recognized that the old verities of a NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict no longer applied. This slowness in revising formal doctrine at least suggested that doctrine was more a response to and a less a shaper of broader defence policy. So much depended on whether the inner empire held together and what cost would be paid in that struggle. So much depended on the nature of the economic and social reforms, and it was only the revolution of August 1991 that set a radical revolutionary course for military doctrine. As should be evident by now, the process of reforming defence policy was a messy mixture of myriad factors. However, although not all the forces pushed in the same direction and hence the contrary trends in the reforms, certain basic trends can be identified. It is clear that the Soviet Union, China and Vietnam all managed to open their defence policy at least to some extent, even if the extents and directions vary. But whereas the result in China has been to create its most successful defence policy in several hundred years, the verdict for the Soviet Union before August 1991 was harder to judge. If it were possible to judge ‘fighting strength’ in any confident way, it would be clear that relative to any of its major potential adversaries, the Soviet Union was weaker than at any point since 1945. In terms of territory controlled and international influence, the Soviet Union had also shrunk to 1945 levels. Of course, it can be argued that a Soviet Union free of imperial burdens and embarking on reform was actually far better able to develop real strength, but in order to sustain such a judgement there needed to be far more evidence that the reforms were really creating a stronger and more effective Soviet Union, able to defend and pursue its national interests. Of course, as the Gulf war of 1991 demonstrated, part of the judgement of Soviet interests and capabilities depended on events taking place in the international system. The view that the Soviet Union was demoted from a superpower to a great power during the Gorbachev era is not only based on the decision to abandon control of Eastern Europe, but also on the fact that in the Gulf war the United States demonstrated that in cooperation with its NATO allies, it was the only power worthy of the superpower label. THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM Demilitarizing defence policy requires some confidence that a more common and cooperative security is preferable to more narrow national security. However, it would be an extremely irresponsible leader that would decide to pursue the interdependence of common security if operating in an international environment where no one else was willing to cooperate. In more common parlance, such a policy might be called surrender rather than demilitarization. Thus it is essential


to appreciate the extent to which the international system has helped, or even stimulated the reform of defence policy. The threat of war War is likely to have a major impact on the prospects for, and character of, defence policy reform. If war is pursued as a continuation of policy by other means then it suggests that the state does not see the benefit of interdependence of security and is therefore pursuing a more closed defence policy. Under such conditions the state will be less interested in arms control, transparency and exchange of military officials. Of course, the state concerned might be fighting in alliance with others, and therefore there might well be a great deal of interdependence of security with allied states. If the state is under attack, it will almost certainly seek such interdependence with allies and take an especially hostile view of the attacking enemy. Therefore, the simple state of being at war is not necessarily evidence of a closed defence policy; a great deal depends on the nature of the conflict. But what is certain is that the absence of the expectation of war is much more likely to lead to more open and interdependent security. In our selected states, four countries were in a state of high military tension or actually at war during at least parts of the period under discussion (North Korea, Vietnam, China, Soviet Union). While North Korea never embarked on reform of defence policy, the GDR and Hungary never viewed the likelihood of war as being very high, although there was some heightened concern in the early 1980s about the intensifying Cold War. Thus we return to our three core states— Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union—all of which have been to war in the decade since 1979. Vietnam is perhaps the most straightforward case because it had been in an almost continuous state of war for forty years. So long as the Vietnamese communists wished to bring a communist variant of independence to their country, they had to fight various great powers who were intent on stopping the spread of the rival ideology, or rival variants of a supposedly shared ideology. The fact that Vietnamese communists were successful in defeating France and the United States made it all the more likely that despite the heavy costs of war, the Vietnamese would feel that war was a useful instrument of policy. Yet the conflict with Cambodia was of a different nature compared with that against France or the United States, if only because communists were also in power in Phnom Penh when war broke out with Vietnam.75 This intracommunist war was a complex mix of traditional rivalries, an ambitious and often ruthless regime in Cambodia, and an overlay of Sino-Soviet rivalry supporting different communist factions. Indeed it was the latter factor that led China to attack Vietnam in February 1979 after Vietnamese troops established a favourable regime in Phnom Penh.76 China hoped to force Vietnam out of


Cambodia, teach the Vietnamese who was the main military power in Indochina, and send a message to the Soviet Union that Soviet support for Asians was of little use. The fact that China failed in all these objectives, as we shall see, was crucial to stimulating Chinese defence policy reform. However, as far as Vietnam was concerned, victory (or at least the absence of defeat) meant that it would stagger on sustaining the occupation of Cambodia, despite the heavy costs in terms of delayed domestic reform. In the ensuing years, Vietnamese troops were able to consolidate control over most of Cambodia for most of the time and could therefore begin to relax about external threats. Chinese attacks along the frontier with Vietnam became more ritual as Peking also began to seek less confrontation along its borders.77 Relaxation of tension was perhaps the most challenging kind of development for Vietnam because it suggested that heavy militarization of defence policy might be reduced. Thus the basic stimulus for reform came from a mix of domestic needs and the costs of success on the battlefield. But pressure was also added by its main ‘ally’, the Soviet Union. By 1986 Moscow was also reassessing its own defence policy and one developing conclusion was that heavy support for distant allies was a drain on Soviet interests and the exchequer.78 Soviet visitors to Vietnam began making it plain that the level of Soviet aid would be reduced from the current $2 billion per year and Vietnam would be expected to engage in its own domestic reforms in order to get any subsequent assistance. What is more, as China indicated to the Soviet Union that Sino-Soviet relations could be normalized if not for the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia, Moscow began pushing Vietnam to leave Cambodia. Soviet pressure was undoubtedly important, but if the Vietnamese economy had not been in such a parlous state, it might have resisted such pressure as it did in earlier phases of conflict in Indochina. Thus the answer to the question about why Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia in September 1989 was a mix of factors, but this basic reform in defence policy seemed to be based on domestic problems. However, as we shall see below, the Vietnamese withdrawal was grudging and it did not immediately bring an end to conflict or Vietnamese support for the Phnom Penh regime. The most comparable case to the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. Indeed the withdrawal of Soviet troops in February 1989 showed some of the same features that affected the much smaller and weaker Vietnam. However, in Vietnam, the decision to enter Cambodia was made mostly by the same people who chose to come out. In the Soviet Union it required a new leadership to decide to change policy. If the fundamental motive in Vietnam withdrawing was the need to begin reform at home, the Soviet calculation was similarly based on the priority of domestic reform.79 It is true that Vietnam was less advanced in its reform programme than


was the Soviet Union when it decided to pull out of foreign wars, but the sense of foreign engagements as a drain was similar. Of course, the calculation of pressures from the international system was different. The Soviet Union had no Soviet Union exerting pressure although it did have a China anxious to see a withdrawal in order to pursue a larger foreign policy détente. The Soviet Union also had pressure from the Islamic and Western worlds either threatening more problems or promising more favours if the Kremlin decided to withdraw from Afghanistan.80 The point was the same— withdrawal was encouraged by the international system with a mix of carrots and sticks. And, of course, the Soviet Union faced more of a problem in subduing the local population in Afghanistan, although like Vietnam after withdrawal from Cambodia, the favoured regime remained in place, even if not in total control of their country. Thus, unlike the United States’ withdrawal from Vietnam, where defeat was complete, Vietnam and the Soviet Union could leave with some sense of success. Would Vietnam have left Cambodia and the Soviet Union quit Afghanistan without external pressure? On balance it seems clear that the Soviet Union made up its own mind—as one might expect for a so-called superpower— but in both cases the basic decision was an internal one shaped by battlefield problems and encouraged by external factors. Of course, the most dramatic case of military disengagement in this period of reform was the Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe. This is not the place to offer a full explanation of the reasons for withdrawal, but it is no exaggeration to suggest that the Soviet decision was the single most important reform of defence policy. One can argue that the basic reason for the ending of Soviet hegemony was the pain of ‘imperial overstretch’—the fact that the Soviet economy could no longer afford its empire. But the calculation of such benefits and burdens requires a more specific analysis of the extent to which the East Europeans opposed Soviet rule, and the extent to which the international system, and NATO in particular, raised the costs of the Soviet Union holding on to the region. Yet the late 1980s were by no means the most difficult time for the Soviet Union in trying to hold its empire together, for the burdens were much higher in the colder parts of the Cold War, and even to some extent in the early 1980s. While East European attitudes, as well as those of NATO states, were important, the key variable to change was to be found within the Soviet Union. What changed was an internal Soviet assessment that their failing economy could no longer bear the burdens. What followed was a gradual decision to at first loosen control of Eastern Europe. As the East Europeans explored the wider limits of their new freedoms, the pace of change increased. It seems clear that there was no Kremlin blueprint for this process and certainly no expectation that the process would eventually lead to a complete loss of Eastern Europe and the reunification of Germany. But the ‘logic’ of events in 1989/90 soon took the process out of Soviet control. In these last stages of the process, the role of the international


system and the local states of Europe were clearly far more important than before in determining the pace and pattern of change. But the reality remains that it was essentially a Soviet decision based on internal constraints which made this entire process possible.81 In the two previous cases, it can be said that Vietnam and the Soviet Union reformed their defence policy by withdrawing from military engagements. In contrast to these examples of reformed defence policy, there is the vexing problem of Chinese behaviour since 1978. As has already been noted, China invaded Vietnam, but only in a punitive war lasting a few weeks. It apparently never had any intention of staying any longer, even if it did hope to be more successful and devastating in its attack. But the real problem is that this war, and the more successful seizure of islands in the Spratly group in March 1988, was launched by an otherwise reforming leadership. Thus for China at least, reform, for example in foreign economic policy, did not necessarily mean that defence policy had to be reformed. Just when China decided that it had to become more interdependent with the outside world economically, it also decided that it could pursue a more nationalistic and less interdependent security by attacking Vietnam.82 Conspiracy theorists have argued that the Chinese armed forces deliberately intended to do badly in order to avoid having to engage in such wasteful ventures in the future and as a spur to the modernization and professionalization of the PLA.83 However, a far less convoluted explanation for the Chinese action was that Peking saw itself as the premier Asian power and would not tolerate anyone challenging that role. Where possible, China will also satisfy its territorial claims, as it has done ever since the communists came to power and whether ruled by reformers or radicals.84 The issue is less one of reform or the absence of reform, and much more to do with the fact that China is not a status quo power and it feels it necessary to change the international system when possible. The reforms in defence or any other aspect of policy can be turned to serve this cause of righting what China sees as the wrongs of history. Thus the Chinese action suggests that at least in its case, there are distinct limits to the demilitarization of defence policy. Indeed, professionalism, which we have defined as a part of general demilitarization, can be turned into an offensive force that militarizes international relations. As in the case of the Soviet military reforms of the early 1960s, or even in the 1970s in the era of détente, there is no necessary link between all aspects of demilitarization of defence policy, or indeed between all aspects of general reform. Some aspects of common security can be sought, while some elements of nationally defined national security are also pursued. This is not to suggest that China is prepared to use its military power whenever possible, for like the Soviet Union in the 1960s, Chinese defence modernization has involved a reassessment of the role of nuclear weapons and


the ‘inevitability of war’. As early as 1980 China was arguing that war was no longer inevitable and as it could be avoided, China could find the breathing space in which to modernize and reform. Cynics will note that this change in doctrine came despite the recent spate of wars on China’s periphery and suggested a change of heart rather than some empirical judgement about a new reality. China wanted a breathing space so it was determined to see one.85 As Chinese doctrine evolved in the 1980s, China reacted to what it perceived as changes in the international system and came to see that although large wars were not likely, small ones were, and indeed China was likely to be involved in more limited conflicts. As we have already seen, Chinese defence modernization included greater stress on air and naval power and less on the massed ranks of ground troops that would be more useful in a general war. In the 1980s Chinese strategists grew ever more specific about the nature of the trends they saw in the international system. Future wars were seen to mean a stress on naval issues more than any other.86 Although China did modernize its nuclear arsenal in this period, the most striking change was the shift to a more SLBM (sea launched ballistic missile) based deterrent. Despite a greater capacity to deploy large numbers of weapons in each category of a nuclear arsenal, China kept to its strategy of minimum deterrence across a range of weapons.87 This modernization of Chinese nuclear doctrine as part of its defence reforms merely brought it more in line with the Soviet Union that had long accepted that because of the trends in the international system, war could be prevented. Thus, because of its assessment of the trends in the international system, for Moscow there was no need to reform basic aspects of its nuclear doctrine and the fact that China did so merely became yet another strand in the Sino-Soviet détente of the 1980s. Thus the optimists might argue that China is merely catching up with modern military doctrine and its use of force in the past decade is an anachronism unlikely to be repeated as the defence reforms take hold. The events of March 1988 in the South China Sea suggest otherwise, but the concern over the lessons from the Gulf war in 1991 might well make China much more wary about using force. Arms transfers Just as involvement in war is not a straightforward demonstration of open ness or closure, so the related matter of arms transfers can be interpreted in different ways. If arms transfers are primarily a matter of ‘displaced conflict’ or even profiting from the conflicts of others, then they can be considered the waging of war by other means. If direct involvement in conflict is merely replaced by provision of the tools of war to others in order to wage war in your interests, then this is a case of interdependence with some but conflict with others. It can be argued that a state with a wide range of arms sales is merely increasing


interdependence in the form of trade, lethal as it might be. Obviously such economic interdependence may fit with security interdependence with allied regimes (as in the case of NATO), but it can conflict with interdependence with states who are the target of the transferred weapons. Thus it was argued in earlier phases of East-West détente in the 1970s that rising levels of Soviet arms sales to the developing world was merely a ‘proxy war’ serving Soviet interests. Clearly it is not easy to interpret the patterns of the international arms trade, and indeed this issue highlights the complexity of openness when conflicting features come together. While the GDR and Hungary have never been significant players in the arms transfer business, North Korea does have an important indigenous arms industry, at least by the standards of small, and developing states. Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union all have played key roles in fuelling regional conflict through arms transfers.88 It is clear that Vietnam was a major supporter of allied communists in the phases of their common struggle against the United States and its allies. Vietnam organized the transfer of Soviet and Chinese weapons to allies in Laos, Cambodia and southern Vietnam and by 1975 Vietnam had taken over all of southern Vietnam and installed a favourable regime in Laos. Cambodia, as we have seen, was far from friendly and eventually was invaded. The subsequent Heng Samrin regime was supported by Vietnam so that when Hanoi’s troops pulled out in 1989, the Phnom Penh government could just about hold its own against the Chinese-supported Khmer Rouge. Thus as Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia as part of its defence reforms, arms transfers increased in the short term. Indeed, the Soviet Union did precisely the same thing with Afghanistan in order to ease their withdrawal. It is ironic that at precisely the same time that the Soviet Union was seeking Western aid, it was providing military assistance to the Afghan regime. Thus, in such cases arms transfers were part of a demilitarization of defence policy, but also indicated its very distinct limits. Indeed, ambiguity surrounds the entire issue of arms transfers in a time of a more open defence policy. On the one hand there were initial signs that the Soviet Union was reducing its arms transfers. Soviet sales to the developing world fell by 66 per cent in 1987–8 according to some estimates, although this was part of a generally contracting market due to economic problems in the developing world.89 On the other hand, the Soviet Union’s share of the market for exports to developing states rose and in 1989 was higher than in 1985. In 1989 the Soviet Union accounted for 52 per cent of all arms sales to the developing world, up from 41 per cent in 1987 and 42 per cent in 1988. But in 1990, reflecting the ending of the Cold War, the value of the trade in major conventional weapons decreased by 35 per cent from the value for 1989. There was a drastic decline in Soviet exports to India, Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as to the former Warsaw


Pact states. Thus the Soviet Union’s share of total conventional arms transfers fell from 37 to 29 per cent between 1989 and 1990. Soviet officials claimed in January 1991 that in the then current Five Year Plan, missile exports were to be cut by 64 per cent, tanks and APCs by 25–30 per cent, artillery by 41 per cent, aircraft by 53 per cent and ships by 56 per cent.90 The arms transfer statistics are notoriously complicated, but there is some evidence to suggest that although the desire to make money from arms transfers may become more acceptable at a time of greater openness to the international market as a whole, and arms sales become more a part of international economic policy than defence policy, the ability to sell arms depends far more on the willingness of purchasers to buy. Clearly, the role of the international system is the key factor explaining the pattern of the arms trade. It is also clear that although openness of defence policy would suggest a reduction in arms transfers as a useful instrument of policy, in an age when reform seems dominated by economic calculations, the profit motive may well lead to an increase in arms sales. Needless to say, the potential for disarray in defence policy and conflict with other agencies at home and other states abroad is likely to increase. As Soviet military officials in the age of reform made clear, the civilian reformers had to choose whether, especially in an age of economic problems, the Soviet Union wanted to give up the benefits from commercial arms sales as opposed to transfers at ‘friendship prices’. As it turns out, the collapse of the arms market helped to decide the matter in favour of those wishing to see a reduction in arms sales. The evidence from China is that the decision not to sell at friendship prices any more was part of the reforms in foreign policy.91 However, this did not mean a decision to reduce arms sales for profit, and in fact China has emerged as a major player in the international arms market. But in the Chinese case, as we have already seen for the Soviet Union, the collapse of the arms market meant an overall reduction of arms sales in the early 1990s, despite a determination to increase market share. Economic reform seems to be a key limit on at least this aspect of defence policy reform as China’s armed forces seek profits to plough back into the defence budget. Foreign policy pragmatism has led China to sell to both sides of the Iran-Iraq war and in some cases to become leading suppliers of heavy equipment. China sold tanks to Iraq and anti-tank weapons to Iran. It sold anti-ship missiles that sunk Western-flagged tankers, much as France did, all the while sitting on the Security Council trying to arrange an end to the conflict. China acquired modern military technology from Israel, but sold some of its newer missiles to Israeli adversaries in the Gulf.92 China also acquired modern technology from Western states in Europe and the United States, only to sell other technology to Iran which sunk Western ships. The basic motive was money, but there was also a hope of finding friends in the region when the war was over.


China became a far more credible power with global reach in the 1980s as its defence policy embraced arms sales as a tool of policy. It was not so much that China sought to influence the outcome of the war as the superpowers used to do, for example in Angola in the mid-1970s. Rather China, much more like France or Britain, wanted to make money. This was not a demilitarized foreign policy, although it is true that it could have been more militarized if China had also sought to support one ally in an effort to change the balance of power in the Middle East. During the Gulf war in 1991 China halted its arms supplies to the region and in July joined talks with the other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (and major arms suppliers) designed to limit the risks of war in the region. All this suggested that this was a simple case where economic reforms clashed with reforms of defence policy. Unless it was absolutely necessary to resolve the conflict of interests, the government in Peking was happy enough to leave the contradiction in effect. When sufficient external pressure was imposed, China could and did see the benefit in putting its house in order. At least in the case of arms sales in 1991 this meant that international security, and especially American complaints about China as an uncooperative power, were placed before the ‘economic interdependence’ of arms sales. Of course, it is unlikely that arms sales will be ended for any length of time and the balance of calculations may well change. At that point China is likely to resume the search for new arms markets. Some sales, for example those by the Soviet Union to China (agreed in 1991), can be seen as increasing interdependence in both security and economic terms. But the search will go on for new and more lucrative markets, many of which are likely to have the problem that the logic of economic policy reform will conflict with that of defence policy reform. Peaceful settlement of disputes A reformed defence policy can also be expected to include a greater resort to collective security rather than national security. But as was clear from even the relatively unanimous agreement of the international community for action against Iraq in the Gulf conflict of 1990–1, there will usually be some states who will oppose the use of international institutions in pursuit of collective security. While there was nearly unanimous support for non-military sanctions against Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait, there was somewhat less support for the use of force to undo the Iraqi aggression. Thus there are clearly different types of approach to collective security, not all of which fit unambiguously with reform of defence policy. For example, is support for economic sanctions mandated by the United Nations evidence of a reformed foreign policy? What about United Nations mandated use of force?


What is perhaps most clear is that a more positive approach to the peaceful settlement of international disputes can be defined as an important aspect of defence policy reform. As has been the case for much of the analysis in this section, the GDR and Hungary have had little role in such issues, although their participation in the CSCE process had aspects which included the peaceful resolution of disputes. The primary interest in the CSCE process was more related to a concern to have international borders recognized, although it was useful in building up the web of common security in Europe before the end of the Cold War. In stark contrast to the European experience, where collective and common security was pursued, however tentatively, in East Asia there were no such multilateral efforts. North Korea has taken few steps that might be described as helping to settle the Korean dispute.93 Once again we return to focus on our three core cases of the Soviet Union, China and Vietnam. Vietnam, once it had withdrawn from Cambodia, became a key actor in determining whether a solution could be found to the Cambodian conflict.94 As a source of refugees, Vietnam was also involved in disputes with ASEAN states, Hong Kong and various Western states concerned with settling refugees. In both cases Vietnam has taken a more positive role in achieving a peaceful settlement. This is not the place to discuss the complex web of issues surrounding the prospects for a settlement in Cambodia. Suffice it to say that Vietnam has not been as constructive as it might have been, although as domestic problems and pressure from the Soviet Union increased, Vietnamese policy moderated. To be sure, a large part of the problem has been the unwillingness of China and the United States to accept anything short of a complete defeat of Vietnam, although there have been signs that both the United States and China have been moderating their position. For for the purposes of this analysis it is sufficient to note that Vietnam took part in the various international meetings sponsored by ASEAN and the United Nations to arrange a settlement. It also expressed a willingness to see a United Nations involvement in supervising free elections, providing the representation of Cambodia at the United Nations is changed. This cautiously accommodating Vietnamese position is in keeping with the tentative nature of many of its reforms, and the steady stream of pressure from its former ally the Soviet Union, and its enemies such as China and the United States. In the summer of 1991, China and Vietnam, both of which had grown fearful of the implications of the ending of communist party rule in the Soviet Union, as well as the rising of American power after the Gulf war, moved closer together in what some described as the ‘red solution’ to Cambodia. At the time of writing it was too early to tell whether these developments in the international system had really forced China and Vietnam to settle the Cambodian conflict, but it was certainly clear that in this case the changes were still leading towards a peaceful settlement of disputes.


The Soviet Union found that its more accommodating line on the peaceful settlement of disputes was met by conciliation on the part of its adversaries. Observers of the pre-Gorbachev era will recall only too well how Soviet support for national liberation movements around the globe was a major feature of EastWest conflict and helped to destroy earlier phases of détente. Although the signs of change in Moscow’s policy towards national liberation movements were apparent to the more astute observers before the Gorbachev era, it is clear that only under Andropov did the Soviet Union seriously reconsider its policy.95 Perhaps the most striking evidence of the change in the Soviet policy can be seen in its attitude towards the United Nations.96 The settlement in Namibia would not have been possible without Soviet pressure on Cuba and Angola and a matching American pressure to force South Africa to reach agreement.97 The superpowers also helped to bang heads together to resolve the conflict in Angola in 1991. Moscow also cut back assistance to Ethiopia in an effort to reduce burdens on the Soviet Union, but with the consequence that the regional conflict on the Horn of Africa was freer to evolve towards a local solution.98 In Central America, the message to Cuba and Nicaragua was similar, and the peaceful transition in Nicaragua suggests that this dispute might also be heading for a more peaceful phase. In the conflict over Cambodia the Soviet Union, especially in cooperation with the United States, also made important moves to help broker a solution. Most striking of all, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the Soviet Union worked closely with the United States in the Security Council to formulate a dozen resolutions, culminating in one approving the use of force against the former Soviet ally, Iraq. What was perhaps most impressive about this new Soviet willingness to work with the United States and the Security Council was that it took place when in so many other aspects of the Soviet reforms there was a conservative backlash. The crackdown in the Baltics and the violation of the CFE accord suggested that many, especially in the armed forces, were fed up with the ‘concessions to common sense’ agreed under Shevardnadze’s tenure as foreign minister. Iraq had been a major Soviet ally in the Middle East and its defeat was a severe embarassment for those who supplied the equipment and training. And yet throughout the war, the Soviet Union remained a firm supporter of collective security. Despite some cack-handed attempts at mediation, the basic thrust of Soviet policy meant that the reforms remained in place. Only when the war was over and the West seemed to become drawn into the civil war between the Kurds and the Iraqis did the Soviet Union block further moves in the United Nations Security Council. But by then many people in the West were quietly grateful that a halt had been called to the involvement. In contrast with earlier phases of détente when there were arms control agreements but no deals on regional conflicts, the Gorbachev era seemed to include a far more comprehensive reform of defence policy in which the linkage


of all kinds of conflict were recognized. As the earlier phases of détente were damaged by the absence of any such linkage, the Soviet Union recognized the need for more comprehensive approaches to genuinely interdependent security.99 Of course, there were still limits to this process. Soviet military aid to Afghanistan and even reports of only a limited withdrawal from military bases in Vietnam suggested that the Soviet Union could do more to resolve local conflicts. But in 1991 the United States had far more forces deployed abroad than the Soviet Union and therefore the limits of ‘reform’ in the Soviet case were not unrealistic for a country anxious to retain some semblance of superpower status. Yet again China stands out as a relatively old thinker when it comes to interdependent security. While the Soviet Union helped to shove Vietnam and Cambodia to a more moderate position on the Indochina conflict, China did far less to push the Khmer Rouge to serious talks.100 China has shown in the past that it is prepared to turn off the taps of support to revolutionary movements in South-East Asia in order to improve relations in the region. But Peking still retained its support for the Khmer Rouge as a way to press Vietnam into a more submissive position and hopefully even get a more favourable regime in Cambodia. While there was some evidence that China saw the need for a settlement, especially in the wake of Western criticism of China after the events of June 1989, Peking was far less willing to demilitarize the Indochinese conflicts. Yet Peking’s policies are patchy. Perhaps its most positive approach to regional security has been its pressure on North Korea to desist from destabilizing the booming north-east Asian economy.101 When China decided to open economic contacts with South Korea it had to ensure that the North did not disrupt the new lucrative relations. China had traditionally been more of a supporter of Kim Il Sung’s harder line on negotiations with South Korea and the Soviet Union was always under pressure that if it pushed Kim too hard to the negotiating table, he might take China’s side in the Sino-Soviet split. But with growing détente in Sino-Soviet relations it was far easier for both China and the Soviet Union to tacitly cooperate in limiting the risks of conflict on the Korean peninsula. This arrangement was apparently not negotiated, but it evolved as China demonstrated by deeds that communist states could do business with South Korea and need not bother much with North Korea. Moscow joined in the new strategy, and encouraged the Hungarians to be the first to establish formal diplomatic relations with South Korea. As all states except North Korea wanted to attend the Seoul Olympiad in 1988, Pyongyang was told by China and the Soviet Union to refrain from dangerous military action. After the Soviet Union established formal diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1990, China established formal trading relations. Both communist powers then pressured North Korea to accept the two-seat solution to membership in the United


Nations. While the Soviet Union was clearer in calling on North Korea to accept IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspections of its nuclear reactor, China was less forthright. But in general China was only marginally less positive than the Soviet Union. Considering the growing importance of the north-east Asian region for the global economy, this was particularly important evidence of a positive approach to regional security. Indeed, China’s attitude to other conflicts in Asia, including that between India and Pakistan, or in Namibia, the Horn of Africa, or the Gulf crisis in 1990, has been, like the Soviet Union, that of a constructive member of the United Nations Security Council.102 China has sent observers to the Middle East truce supervisory units and has loosened its ban on contacts with Israel in order to prepare for future negotiations. It was back in 1981 that China began paying for UN peace-keeping forces in the Middle East and in 1988 it became the thirty-fourth member of the Special Commission of the UN peace-keeping operations—China had been the only permanent member of the Security Council not to take part. On 31 October 1989 the Chinese ambassador to the United Nations told the Special Political Committee of the General Assembly that China was ‘ready to join the international community in contributing to the greater success of the UN peacekeeping operations’. In 1989 it sent twenty non-military election supervisors to the UN Transition Assistance Group in Namibia, in April 1990 the Chinese announced that five military officers would join UN forces in the Golan (Israeliheld Syrian territory), and in 1991 China sent twenty military observers to the UN Observer Group along the Kuwait-Iraq border. But by contrast, and as we have already seen, China’s attitude towards conflict in the Iran-Iraq war undermined international efforts to resolve the conflict. In the 1990 Kuwait crisis, China abstained on the Security Council resolution in November sanctioning the use of force against Iraq, but did not block the operation of UNsanctioned collective security. Arms sales clearly prolonged and heightened the tension in the Iran-Iraq conflict, but in the 1990–1 crisis China ceased its arms sales and agreed to meet other great powers to discuss curbs on arms sales to the region. Chinese provision of missiles to Saudi Arabia did help to fuel another regional arms race, but then China was in the good company of the other permanent members of the Security Council as major arms suppliers to the war zone. It used to be said that China was a mere great power because its ability to influence distant conflicts was limited. Thus rhetorical support for factions in the Angolan civil war could not be translated into active military support, and nor could backing for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) mean anything unless the Soviet Union agreed. Now that China has demonstrated that it is able to deliver weapons anywhere, and in large quantities, it has demonstrated key features of a superpower. To that extent, China is hardly pursuing interdependent


security, although as has been discussed in an earlier section, the matter of arms transfers is fraught with analytical difficulties. ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT Reform and interdependence of defence policies might be expected to lead to a reduction in the number and lethality of weapons. Yet unilateral disarmament is less likely when perceived enemies are not reducing their own forces and thus the type of external environment becomes crucial to the pace and nature of any reduction in weapons. This dimension of defence policy reform can be divided into the usual categories of conventional and nuclear weaponry. No state is unarmed and even some of the most peaceful and neutral (Switzerland) are heavily armed with active armed forces. Thus there is no direct correlation between the state of one’s arsenal and the extent of threat posed to others. The notion that if you wish to deter war you must prepare to wage it, underlies nuclear and conventional deterrence. Hence the nature of arms control as an element of reform of defence policy must be judged on whether it contributes to international security, not whether there is an absolute reduction in forces. Conventional weapons All six of our countries have significant conventional armed forces, but not all were free to decide the disposition of those forces. Hungary and the GDR, as members of the Warsaw Pact, apparently wished to spend less on defence but were tied in to Soviet policy and complex Europe-wide negotiations. Both countries could be seen as advocates of arms control and both took part in the Mutual and Balanced Forces Reduction (MBFR) and CSCE processes. Yet there is also evidence that both states regularly resented Soviet domination, no matter whether domestic reform was on the agenda in the specific country. The basic desire for cuts came from their subservient position rather than any linkage of domestic and foreign policies. Without the fundamental defence reform of loosening a suffocating alliance (see below), there was little point in discussing these states as significantly independent actors. North Korea is a different case where although there was no suffocating great power domination, there was still no conventional arms control. Indeed the confrontation on the Korean peninsula remained one of the major dangers of an arms race. While the Soviet Union, and to some extent China, did have a say in the type of arsenal they allowed Pyongyang to procure, they were also affected by the level of arms the United States allowed South Korea to acquire.104 Neither Korean state was seriously interested in any form of arms control without more general signs of moderating policies. As is true in most conflicts, arms control


like arms races follows rather than causes more fundamental aspects of the conflict.105 Vietnamese troop reductions certainly demonstrated this point, for cuts in the armed forces only followed a more general sense that Cambodia had been stabilized, China had been deterred and there was a pressing domestic need to engage in reform. The decision to cut 600,000 off the rolls of the third largest armed forces in the communist world was a unilateral effort, albeit encouraged by the Soviet Union. Vietnam negotiated with no one and determined its own extent of the cuts. Indeed there has never been a formal arms control agreement in Asia that limits forces.106 Nevertheless, as reductions along the Sino-Soviet frontier have made clear, this is not to argue that there is no real arms control in Asia. It can be shown that although the Euro-Atlantic obsession with de-jure arms control has never been accepted in the East Asian context of more pragmatic politics, de-facto arms control along the Sino-Soviet frontier was far more impressive than anything seen in the pre-1990 European theatre. China began the process in the early stages of its reforms by unilaterally pulling back its forces from the frontier in order to allow for a more mobile defence doctrine to be put into operation.107 The Soviet Union, in the un-reformed days of Brezhnev, decided that the deployments in the Soviet far east were sufficient to deter a Chinese threat and so divisions were unofficially ‘thinned out’ by reducing the category of readiness. Some 80,000–90,000 troops were taken off the frontier before Gorbachev came to power. China responded, albeit tacitly, by reducing the size of its armed forces by some one million men in 1985–7. This meant that about 90,000– 100,000 troops were removed from the Sino-Soviet frontier. The virtuous cycle of détente continued with Gorbachev’s announcement at the United Nations in December 1988 that some 500,000 Soviet troops would be taken off the battle rolls. Although most European observers were too enthused about the cuts in troops in the European theatre to notice, some 52 per cent of the cuts were to come from Soviet forces in Asia and some 40 per cent from the frontier facing China. Subsequent reports suggested China might make further cuts of its own, and in 1989 both sides finally began formal negotiations on confidence-building measures along the frontier. Although not all the promised cuts have yet been achieved on the Soviet side, the trend is clear. Real arms control and disarmament could be achieved by unilateral means, and indeed informally interlocked unilateral disarmament was much faster than the legalistic nit-picking that so slowed European and superpower arms control. The key was the decision by both China and the Soviet Union that they both needed a more peaceful international environment in which to pursue modernization. So long as they saw their rival was prepared to reciprocate in kind, then cuts in troops could be made without obtaining perfect parity. Military sufficiency was part of a more comprehensive sense of national security.


Of course, none of these cuts were formally agreed and thus there was no provision for formal verification. Confidence-building through formal arms control did appear to follow the informal accord, and may well be designed to help get over future instability that might arise from unforeseen challenges to the new status quo. But in the meantime both countries can benefit from the ‘peace dividend’ and cross-border contacts such as trade can flourish without waiting for the lawyers to agree. Swift agreement that shows immediate success also allows less time for political back-chat that might undermine a deal. It is also striking that while the presence of a general reform in defence policy in China helped to start the process of arms control, it was reciprocated by a Soviet Union not otherwise seen to be in a mood to reform defence policy. But as was evident in the 1970s phase of superpower nuclear arms control, there is no necessary link between arms control and a general strategy of demilitarization.108 If the reductions can be seen to be in the national interest as well as the international interest, then an agreement is possible. A greater concern with the interdependence of security would undoubtedly make the virtuous circle even stronger, as indeed was demonstrated by the reinforcement given by the Gorbachev priorities after 1985. Of course, the Gorbachev definition of military reform was not merely applicable to relations with China. Cuts in naval deployments in Cam Ranh Bay and in the out-of-area operations of the navy around the world obviously helped convince other Asians and indeed a wider world that the Soviet Union was serious about détente. Although most of the earliest cuts in Soviet conventional forces took place in Asia, it soon became clear that the cuts were part of a general strategy and Soviet forces in Europe would also be sharply reduced. Indeed, it was a vital part of the détente in Europe that the Soviet Union was prepared to make disproportionately larger cuts in its forces.109 In 1991 the Soviet Union was scheduled to take 100,000 troops and 1,000 tanks out of Germany. Soviet forces pulled out, or were clearly doing so from all other East European states. But the unilateral cuts by the Soviet Union based on broader features of security played a crucial part in shaping a more peaceful and cooperative security structure in Europe. Although progress was being made in conventional arms control talks in Europe before the second half of 1989, the de-communizing revolutions of the last half of the year once again showed the superiority of politics rather than lawyers as a means of achieving real reductions.110 It was the Soviet decision to allow the East Europeans to dispose of communist rulers that led to the most rapid demilitarization since the end of the Second World War. New governments in Eastern Europe soon demanded Soviet troop withdrawals from Europe far in excess of what the negotiators had agreed. As the Warsaw Pact collapsed, arms controllers had to retreat to their word processors to turn out radical new proposals for restructuring forces in Europe. Clearly the comical efforts to update the CFE


agenda were frustrated by a fast-moving political agenda. With moves to independence in the Baltics, no negotiator could be clear what would belong to the Soviet Union, let alone where Soviet troops would be by the time an accord was ready to be signed. By the time the accord was ready to be signed, the political momentum in the post-Cold War Europe had ensured that troops were already well on their way to being withdrawn before the observers could count them properly. The coming of the East Asian style of arms control to Europe frustrated those wishing to see a formal accord. Yet the reality was deep cuts in conventional forces derived from Soviet reforms. To be sure, we had earlier CSCE accords before such sweeping reforms, for reasons already suggested. Where national security and international security coincided, some accords were always possible. But when national security concepts were fundamentally reassessed, and it was decided that real security for the Soviet Union required allowing more of Western Europe into the Soviet Union—the true meaning of interdependence and a Common European Home—then demilitarization could reach new levels. To be sure, such linkages were also clear when, following the CFE accord in 1990, the armed forces in the Soviet Union indicated they had had enough of unilateral concessions. The violations of the CFE accord were only part of the conservative attempt to undermine Shevarnadze’s foreign policy which eventually led to his resignation in December 1990. By June 1991 the CFE accord was back in place, coinciding with a compromise deal in the Soviet Union on the balance of power between centre and region and evidence that a truce had been called in many aspects of domestic reform debates, at least until August 1991. But not even this brief back-tracking on reform could hide the fact that in 1989–90 the Soviet Union had made major changes in its defence policy. The most important consequence of the reforms was that hegemonic control over Eastern Europe could not be maintained. While the decision was taken in Moscow, the pressure had come from the East Europeans who demonstrated a determined unwillingness to serve Soviet interests.111 The burden of imperial overstretch grew too heavy and Gorbachev chose to gamble that the Soviet Union could benefit from a more cooperative relationship with all of Europe. By stressing the notion of a Common European Home, Gorbachev hoped to persuade Europeans that the Soviet Union could contribute to the greater good of the continent. He wished to give Europeans a stake in reform of the Soviet Union, thereby also helping him to reform his own country in the face of conservative opposition.112 But it was an astounding gamble to take. The former East European allies merely seized their independence, with few giving much thanks to Moscow once the tanks had departed. Some, such as the Poles, would express some interest in Soviet support when worried about German imperialism, but it was only the


developed West Europeans who could really help Gorbachev out with domestic reform. When all the regimes of Eastern Europe settle down to the nitty-gritty of democratic government, the nitty-gritty of arms control may well return to the agenda. The disintegration of Yugoslavia is only the most obvious case of new/ old problems of European security. But in the new Europe of five great powers, the Soviet Union, or more properly, Russia, will be the odd man out for some time to come. The key to building confidence, at least with regard to the remnants of Soviet power in Europe, will be less a matter of the specific numbers of troops deployed in any sector, and much more a matter of the transparency of the new security order. Soviet reformers were clear that transparency was vital, and indeed was more possible in the atmosphere of demilitarization of Soviet society.113 Of course, early versions of CSCE-type transparency was also negotiated under the Brezhnev and Reagan presidencies and is not necessarily reliant on contemporary reforms. But as is evident from the sharply increased level and range of military-to-military contacts, there developed a new meaning to modern transparency. The Soviet Union negotiated detailed exchanges of highlevel military personnel with its adversaries, including the despatch of ships for ‘friendly’ port calls and the exchange of personnel of staff colleges. Yet such exchanges intended to enhance transparency can also be seen as simple reflections of the decline of the mutual perception of threat in East-West relations. It may not necessarily be a reflection of wider openness, if it is not applied to other adversaries whose relations with the Soviet Union are improving less rapidly. For example, it is notable that Soviet-Japanese relations did not follow this trend to transparency, reflecting the limited improvement in bilateral relations.114 Once again the central point seems to be that defence policy reform tends to follow other reforms and is often best seen as a manifestation rather than a basic cause of détente. It is also clear that the burdens placed on transparency have increased in a multipolar environment. Once again, as the East Asian experience suggests, informal arms control may well prove to be more easily achieved than the more formal kind so-beloved of Europeans, although it is obviously a step towards more interdependent security if verification and confidence-building measures are built into the routines of a state’s security policy. Nuclear weapons Nuclear weapons pose special problems of analysis. Indeed it can be argued that the most important reason for thinking about military security in terms of ‘common security’ comes from the threat that nuclear weapons pose to civilization as a whole. The earliest major agreements between the great powers concerned ways of limiting the risk of nuclear war or even nuclear fall-out from


tests. The ‘spirit of Camp David’ in the 1950s or the détente of the 1970s was the result of this concern about common security. Of course, great power agreements on nuclear issues were reached without any general reform in defence policy, which suggests that there is no clear link between domestic and foreign policy reform. The nuclear issue is also distinctive because of the esoterics of nuclear weapons strategy. The doctrine of deterrence, especially in its variant of mutual assured destruction, requires a peculiar mix of certainty about the destructiveness of weapons and uncertainty about the conditions under which the weapons would be used. Thus if defence policy reform means openness, it will tend to run up against a doctrinal desire to leave some uncertainty about the whereabouts of weapons and the chances that they might be used. The confidence about a secure second strike potential as a guarantee of deterrence positively requires that the adversary should not be able to find and destroy SLBMS, bombers or even mobile land-based weapons. Thus the paradox of nuclear strategy is clear. Nuclear weapons are a basic reason for seeking common security and a more open discussion of nuclear strategy. Yet stable deterrence requires secrecy and some uncertainty, thereby limiting possible openness in nuclear strategy. Only two of our selected states have nuclear weapons, although rumours persist about North Korean intentions to join the nuclear club. Until the 1991 START accord there had been no significant nuclear demilitarization in the age of reform. Until then the most successful nuclear arms control took place in 1972 under Brezhnev and Nixon. The INF accord, and especially the July 1991 START accord reducing superpower arsenals by 30 per cent (to the levels of the early 1980s) suggested that important arms control agreements were eventually possible in the age of reform. The START accord which was so laborious to negotiate, made policy-makers in both the Soviet Union and the United States wary about committing so many resources and so much attention to this aspect of their relationship when there appeared to be so much else which was more pressing in the post-Cold War world. The ending of the Cold War, and the concern with such potential nuclear powers as Iraq, led to a shift in the discussions about nuclear strategy to the problems of proliferation rather than the need for further superpower accords. Yet the failure to reduce superpower arsenals to levels required for minimum deterrence also reduced the incentives to limit proliferation and certainly made it less likely that smaller nuclear powers, such as China, would become involved in arms control on nuclear matters. Until 1991 China, despite more than a decade of domestic reform, remained remarkably aloof from the arms control process, apart from the ritual of the United Nations Disarmament Committee. But in August 1991, China announced it would join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 after years of having denounced the treaty as an anti-Third World pact. The cause of the change in China’s policy was clearly the fact that France had agreed to join the NPT in


June 1991, thereby leaving China exposed as the only great power refusing to sign the pact. It has not signed the Partial Test Ban pact of 1963 and refuses any invitation to discuss tighter bans. It has acceded to the protocols of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone treaty, although it poses no limits on Chinese forces. Whether agreement to the NPT terms means China will change its general attitude to nuclear arms control is hard to tell, but it does suggest that reform of at least this aspect of Chinese foreign policy has more to do with changes in the international system than with changes in Chinese domestic politics. Even prior to signing the NPT, China had not been a proliferator of nuclear weapons, even apparently to Pakistan. Nor has China been a conspicuously dirty tester of nuclear weapons, having switched to underground tests when the technology became available. Yet China has continued to modernize its arsenal in the 1980s free of any constraint except cost and technology. The decision to retain minimum levels of nuclear weapons in most categories does not especially aggravate international security, although it certainly does not help to build confidence in the likelihood of a nuclear-free world. India obtained nuclear weapons in large measure because China did, and Pakistan seems to be trying to follow the Indian course. Although this proliferation seems controlled, far less confidence might be expressed about a nuclear stand-off between North and South Korea. Persistent reports since 1989 of North Korean attempts to obtain nuclear weapons place even greater stress on the Soviet and Chinese efforts to keep Pyongyang under control. Neither great power seems to have an interest in encouraging Korean proliferation and yet it is also clear from the Soviet Union’s vain attempts to prevent China from becoming a nuclear power in the 1960s, that the acquisition of the technology is not beyond the reach of developing states. China promises that should the superpowers make such swingeing cuts in their arsenals that they come down to the levels of the medium nuclear powers, then Peking will contemplate joining the arms control process. Like France and Britain, China sees no sense in making proportional cuts in an arsenal that would suffer far more damage than would the superpowers with so much overkill.115 Indeed there is a good case that the stability of Chinese deterrence would be degraded if it made such cuts, given its minimum deterrence capability. Of course the Soviet Union was another matter entirely. Its arsenal, like that of the United States, was far in excess of anything needed for minimum deterrence. Yet the reform of defence policy under Gorbachev barely affected this nuclear capability.116 The INF accord of December 1987 was the only significant nuclear arms control agreement achieved in the first five years of the Gorbachev era. It was achieved only after major concessions by the Soviet Union broke the negotiating deadlock left by Chernenko and once again was a gamble that unilateral concessions would provoke a faster pace détente.117 In this case, the INF accord


banning all land-based intermediate range nuclear missiles was militarily insignificant but politically far-sighted. By agreeing to de-link the INF accord from one on strategic weapons or space weapons, the United States was encouraged to put the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) on the back-burner. By agreeing to eliminate more new weapons and more warheads than the United States in Europe, Gorbachev widened the gap between the Germans and their NATO allies about new weapons deployments. By agreeing to eliminate these weapons in the Soviet far east as well as Europe, détente with China was made more possible. Overall, the impression of making concessions led Western leaders to take Gorbachev more seriously, leading to more talks about a wider range of security issues. The sense that an INF accord could enhance comprehensive security was proven correct, at least in its initial stages. Yet it is not clear that at the time of the INF accord Gorbachev was prepared to surrender control of Eastern Europe, for when that de-coupling took place in 1989, the entire INF debate seemed like an historical footnote. Of far more importance were the negotiations on START. Of course, to some extent everyone had other, more pressing matters on their agenda since the events of 1989. But the Soviet Union remained the only plausible nuclear weapons rival to the United States and thus nuclear issues still had an important place on the superpower agenda. In May 1990 the two superpowers demonstrated that nuclear weapons were a vital part of defence policy reform as they reached agreement on key components of a full START accord which was eventually signed in Moscow in July 1991. But the superpowers also demonstrated that the nuclear issue remained a peculiar case of common security. In fact it was the Soviet Union that declined to provide full information about its mobile land-based missiles because that would compromise its second-strike capability.118 With the sophisticated, and necessarily secret game of cat-andmouse at sea focused on SLBMs increasingly becoming the main arena for a second-strike deterrent force, it was clear that nuclear strategy seemed to limit defence policy openness. The START negotiations only reinforced the point that defence policy reform had distinct limits. Some of the constraints were set by other priorities, but the most important in the nuclear sphere was the overriding need for stability. The need for an invulnerable second-strike capability was increasingly appreciated in the armed forces of both superpowers, even if some civilians felt the minimum level of that deterrence could be set at lower levels. But in both superpowers there was a basic acceptance of the importance of the armed forces as part of the negotiating teams and little sense that Soviet defence policy reform would mean the elimination of the military from negotiations, any more than it did for the United States. Thus it was clear that reductions in nuclear weapons was a very different process from conventional demilitarization. The costs of maintaining


such forces were small and this was no small consideration in an age of economic priorities. Also, with the risks of regional proliferation growing around the Soviet periphery, the temptation was to make far less significant cuts than many hoped. Defence policy reform was unlikely to mean the end of the nuclear weapons era. ALLIANCES The place of alliances in any calculation of defence policy reform, like many of the other aspects already discussed, is far from obvious. To an important extent, alliances can be merely another form of collective security. If sanctioned by a large part of the international community, such cooperation can be seen as contributing to international security and therefore qualify as a defence policy reform. But most alliances are, in fact, responses to a perceived threat and the need to club together in opposition to an enemy. As we saw during the Cold War, the Warsaw Pact and NATO were alliances that shaped interdependence of a very limited sort, especially in the case of the Warsaw Pact. Certainly in this light, military alliances, like exclusive trading blocs, are evidence of unreformed policy. Indeed there was perhaps no more militarized a feature of Soviet defence policy than its holding captive the people of Eastern Europe. Hungary and the GDR had little that could be called a national defence policy after they became ‘allied’ to the Soviet Union. Thus there was no more powerful evidence of reformed Soviet defence policy than the ‘second liberation’ of Eastern Europe in 1989. With democratic elections in Eastern Europe, and above all with the absorption of the GDR by West Germany, the Warsaw Pact effectively ceased to exist. The military arm of the Pact was disbanded in April 1991. As we have already suggested, the decision to free Eastern Europe was closely connected with the basic principle of Gorbachev’s reform. The opening of the cage may well have resulted from a series of smaller decisions, including pressure on the likes of the GDR to reform, and willingness to allow Poland to have a noncommunist government in June 1989.119 The bloody price of communist rule demonstrated on the streets of Peking on the day of the Polish elections made the starkness of the choice clear to the Soviet leadership. Yet we are still unclear about the precise time when the Soviet Union decided to adopt a genuinely open defence policy and allow the East Europeans to go their own way. It seems likely that the basic steps in this direction were taken as early as 1987, but it is unlikely that the pace and starkness of the outcome were fully anticipated.120 It may be that multilateral military alliances are not to be a feature of modern European politics. They certainly seem to be extinct in East Asia and everywhere else for that matter. No other communist state is a member of such a strange organization as the Warsaw Pact. The logic of Soviet defence policy reform was


that international interdependence would be with a wider range of states. There could be a Common European Home, just as there could be a Common Asian Home or even a global international community. The de-ideologization of foreign policy required as much. But this was not the same thing as suggesting that there must be something that takes the active role of an integrated military command in peacetime. A forum for discussions about military matters was one thing—the congress system, perhaps as manifest in a new CSCE—but a formal military alliance seemed less likely. It may be the greatest legacy of the Gorbachev reforms that defence policy no longer includes multilateral military alliances. CONCLUSION Let us return to the foreign policy reforms set out in the introduction and summarize the analysis by offering some tentative explanations of why these reforms took place. It should be clear by now that defence policy reform is remarkably complex. Not only is it closely conected with other aspects of reform, but there seem to have been a large number of contradictory trends. The result, as we concluded in the previous section, was the distinctiveness of each country’s reform. Unlike the previous section it is clear that the Soviet Union had the greatest success in reforming its defence policy. This was achieved at the cost of a vastly reduced Soviet military power, both in absolute and in relative terms. In fact the contrast to China is especially clear, because as the Soviet Union settled for a much more cooperative relationship with other great powers, China has moved to a more independent posture. The result is a pattern of reforms in the world of communist states that accentuates the differences between China and the rest of the world. By far the most important reform was that the Soviet Union withdrew from its foreign military engagements mainly in order to focus on domestic reforms. The Soviet decision was perhaps tougher than the Vietnamese choice to leave Cambodia because the Soviet Union was less obviously successful in its foreign war. Yet the Chinese experience in the Spratlys, as well as continued Soviet and Vietnamese support for allies, suggested there were limits to such reform and in the Chinese case that there is no necessary link between domestic and foreign policy aspects of defence policy reform. The Soviet Union’s reductions in military operations beyond its frontiers were also due to the desire to focus on domestic reforms. But as China’s opposite trends suggest, there was little inherent in the international system that made such changes inevitable. Cuts in the size of defence forces and defence budgets also seemed related to economic priorities. Soviet cuts came despite United States increases while increases in the Chinese defence budget came at the same time as rising military budgets in Japan and India. The link to the changes in the international system is


unclear, but domestic factors seem to be of paramount importance, at least in the absence of pressing international considerations. Arms control has followed broader changes in foreign and domestic policy. Major reforms seem to mean much more unilateral and informal arms control. Nuclear arms control remains a special case that limits the extent of openness in defence policy. Increased transparency and contacts between military professionals is more an effect than a cause of defence policy reform. The fainter the perception of threat, the more such transparency and contacts become possible. Arms transfer policy may shift, but not necessarily lead to a cut in sales because of the countervailing desire to make money by arms sales. This suggests the complexity of defence policy reform and the complex relationship with other foreign policy reforms. The role of such international institutions as the UN is enhanced with the new search for peaceful settlement of disputes. The pursuit of such settlements is based on a similar mix of motives derived from changes in the international system as well as aspects of domestic politics. The loosening of alliance ties came because of a mixture of motives. Both the Soviet Union and Vietnam found the burdens of alliances increasingly too hard to bear, and this was made worse by continuing opposition to such alliances, at least in the case of the East Europeans. There was also encouragement from the international system to cast off the burdens of alliance. Burdens are ‘measured’ in economic as well as political and military terms. The stress on military professionalism as part of the defence policy reforms is natural because the rest of society is also stressing other types of professionalism. But it also makes possible a more aggressive defence policy and seems to aggravate tensions within the armed forces about new directions for the new professionals. The general question of professionalism tends to have a less negative impact on economic and social aspects of reform because it tends to mean a reduction in the power of the ruling communist party and makes possible greater openness to the outside world. Once again, it is clear that openness in defence policy is often very different from openness in other aspects of policy, as is seen especially clearly in a comparison of the Chinese and Soviet cases, success in economic openness does not necessarily lead to a more open defence policy.

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3 CULTURE AND COMMUNICATIONS POLICY Judy Batt, Peter J.S.Duncan, David S.G.Goodman, Adrian Hyde-Price, Gerald Segal and Michael C.Williams

The role of cultural and communications policy in the reform of foreign policy in communist states is of considerable importance, if only by virtue of the attention paid to this area of policy by ruling communist elites. All communist governments have, from their first days in power, attempted to influence—if not directly control—the flow of information in their societies. They have also paid keen attention to the development of their country’s culture, in order to establish ways of imbuing their citizens with the values deemed appropriate for a communist society. Of course, the reality of unreformed communist states was centralized political control over the expression of ideas, in both form and content. This political censorship was enforced by an administrative mechanism centred on the security services in which criticism and disagreements deemed unacceptable by the authorities were classified as criminal acts. At the same time, control of information coming from abroad was of particular concern to communist elites, given their preoccupation with excluding what they have tended to perceive as the malign and corrupting influence of the world outside. The scope of this section is correspondingly difficult to define. It is sometimes hard to determine whether a particular move in cultural or communications policy belongs more to domestic or to foreign policy. For example, the Stalinist policy of restricting the ability of ordinary Soviet citizens to have contact with the outside world was not motivated primarily by foreign policy considerations. It was based on fear of the consequences of exposing the population to the free flow of ideas from the West (or indeed from Eastern Europe or the Islamic world), and to an awareness of the real standard of living in the capitalist countries. The aim of communist elites has been to keep closed societies closed. If the communist governments decided to prevent religious believers from communicating with co-religionists in a foreign country, the motivation was usually not to punish the country concerned but to facilitate the struggle against religion. In democratic countries, such interference with non-governmental contacts may take place for other reasons. If Britain or another Commonwealth country decides not to allow cricketers to play in South Africa, this is not


because of a domestic policy aim of stifling cricket but because of a foreign policy aim of fighting apartheid. Of course, the Soviet Union’s boycott of the 1984 Olympiad in Los Angeles was a foreign policy decision and had little to do with domestic politics. In most communist states motivations are not always so easy to analyse. If the Soviet government decided not to allow direct flights to Israel because it wanted to make emigration more difficult, domestic policy motivations would have been paramount; but if it took the same decision because it wanted to show its opposition to Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories and put pressure on Israel, then foreign policy aims would have dominated. The release of hundreds of political and religious prisoners in 1987 could be seen as part of an attempt by Gorbachev and Shevardnadze to show to the world a more peaceful and humane face, in order to facilitate disarmament negotiations. Alternatively, it might have been part of a domestic strategy aimed at winning over the intelligentsia to a project of economic reform, by showing that the new leadership were genuinely trying to encourage discussion of alternative ways forward for Soviet society. Even the development of glasnost’ in the late 1980s was interpreted by some as an attempt to attract Western aid for the Soviet economy, while leaving the Party and KGB structures intact. For many reforms undertaken in the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev, or indeed any of the other states under consideration, it is impossible to say clearly whether they were derived from changes in, or pressures from, the domestic or international arenas. Because we are concerned with communications policy, the relationship between domestic and international aspects is inherently complex. As a result, this section is organized somewhat differently than the previous two in that it first focuses on the main reforms in each country, and then turns to a more explicitly comparative assessment of the role played by domestic and international factors. In order to help guide the reader through the first section outlining the main reforms, it is useful to highlight a number of the central themes of the analysis. First, as one might expect from a section on attitudes to reform of cultural policy, we are centrally concerned with the role of political, economic and even strategic culture. Indeed, perhaps the main explanation for the diversity in approaches to foreign policy reform in the states under consideration has been the impact of culture. While there might be far more similarities if reform was simply concerned with opening up a set of communist states, there is far more diversity when attempts are made to open up distinctive, and far more deeply rooted political cultures. It is one thing to try to establish a civil society in Hungary, the GDR and even the Soviet Union, when there are reasonably obvious connections in precommunist days to a wider European or even Atlantic community of culture that shared an appreciation of rights and a society based on contract. But in much of East Asia, the stress is far more on consensus rather than conflict in politics and duties rather than rights. As we have seen even in the

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modernized, relatively market-oriented and plural political systems such as Japan, these different values shape a different sort of capitalist state than that known in the Atlantic world. A second, and very much related theme, is that the level of development is yet another key variable explaining some of the responses to, and patterns of, reform. Modernization does require wider communication with the outside world, a more highly trained population, and people more used to taking more responsibility for their action. This is not to suggest that modernization requires a uniform openness, but it does add pressure for at least a degree of openness which is often then shaped by specific cultural factors. Third, much of the greater openness to the outside world is involved with what can be called the ‘demonstration effect’. Openness is not merely a matter of greater exchange of people, for ideas can be transmitted in various ways, and with the possible exception of North Korea, none of the states under examination could be said to have been comprehensively closed to learning from the actions of foreigners. Such a demonstration effect involves both the informal process of watching how the West, or even other communist states behaved naturally, and the more conscious policy of outsiders to affect the politics within communist states. By their very nature, such issues are impossible to pin down with any precision, but as we have already seen in earlier sections, openness to ideas is, in the long term, one of the most important reforms. Fourth, this section is very much concerned with issues normally classified as political reform. But despite the tendency in the Atlantic world to see political reform as moving away from authoritarianism, the experience of East Asia is far less obvious. For China in particular, it is of great importance that in Japan and the four NICs which can be classed as broadly within the same zone of cultural experience, there is a ‘strain to authoritarian rule’. It will not have escaped the notice of reformers in China and Vietnam that the East Asian success story written by their neighbours in the region has often been based on far more authoritarian government and even more command-like economies than those seen in the Atlantic world. Thus political reformers in East Asia simply may not be on the same road—although they may be in the same time zone—as reformers in Europe. MAIN REFORMS The freedom to organize The ability to communicate with the outside world depends on the fundamental freedom to organize within the state. Of course, even the most orthodox of communist regimes has found it impossible to completely restrict the ability of


its people to organize for political purposes. But it is certainly true that a much greater freedom to organize within the communist party states allowed the emergence of dissident ideas which came to re-shape both domestic and foreign policies. For the purposes of our analysis, we are primarily concerned with the way in which the greater freedom to organize internally affected foreign policy. In essence, we are looking at the way in which these domestic reforms resulted in thicker and more complex relations with the outside world, as well as the way in which the outside world reacted to these changes. As we have already suggested, an important part of this story is the difficult matter of absorbing the demonstration effect from the outside world. Whether it is the events of Poland in 1980–1, China in 1989, or Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in 1989–91, it is clear that this demonstration effect often also includes events within the communist world as much as it does an appreciation of the practices of the capitalist world. As we have already seen in earlier sections, there were distinct precursors to recent reform in many communist states. In the case of the Soviet Union under Khrushchev there was, for a time at least, a release of prisoners, a greater stress on legality and a greater freedom of discussion than in Stalin’s time. Following the Prague Spring and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Leonid Brezhnev leadership set itself against democratic reforms in the political sphere, but at the same time allowed greater professional autonomy to the intelligentsia. In the cultural sphere, authors were in practice no longer confined to the Stalinist doctrine of ‘socialist realism’ but were allowed to develop their own schools (such as the ‘village prose’ movement), so long as they did not enter the political arena in opposition to the ruling party. The issue of human rights became internationalized in the early 1970s, when the US Congress made trade credits for the USSR dependent on it allowing Jewish emigration. While the Soviet government rejected such conditions, it nevertheless was forced to agree to the inclusion of a human rights ‘basket’ at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), in exchange for Western recognition of the postwar frontiers and the possibility of economic cooperation. So long as East-West detente seemed to bring benefits to the Soviet communists, they were prepared to make concessions to the West. The Helsinki Final Act of 1975 included provisions for a series of follow-up conferences to monitor the performance of the signatories. This laid the basis for the formation by Soviet citizens of a network of unofficial Helsinki Monitoring Groups, investigating Soviet breaches of the country’s human rights commitments. From 1977 the Carter Administration increased the pressure on Brezhnev’s Politburo over human rights in the USSR and Eastern Europe. Indeed the persecution of dissidents was one of the reasons, together with Soviet behaviour in the Third World and the continuing Soviet military build-up in Eastern Europe, which led to the collapse of détente. The invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, the


expulsion of Academician Andrei Sakharov to Gorky and the thorough crackdown on dissent were linked elements in a policy package which involved turning away from the West and suppressing dissent at home and abroad. Russian-language broadcasts from the West were jammed after the emergence of Solidarity in Poland in August 1980, as the authorities tried to prevent the contagion of independent trade unions from spreading into the USSR. The ending of direct telephone dialling from the West to Moscow in the summer of 1982 symbolized the attempt to reduce day-to-day unofficial contacts. The dark days persisted up to the end of the Brezhnev era. Under Yury Andropov a corollary of the ‘discipline’ and anti-corruption campaign was an acknowledgement of some of the deficiencies of the Brezhnev era. The media were allowed, or perhaps better, directed, to give more coverage to the shortcomings of contemporary life and to present proposals for economic reform. It was admitted that Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan were involved in fighting insurgents as well as building roads. For part of the Konstantin Chernenko interlude (February 1984-March 1985) there was a further crackdown in the cultural sphere, and fears of a neo-Stalinist restoration grew. Of course, there was little reduction in the general level of tension with the West under Andropov or Chernenko. NATO deployed Cruise and Pershing missiles in Western Europe in December 1983, and President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (announced in March 1983) was used to generate something approaching a war hysteria. Unofficial contacts between ordinary citizens and foreigners were discouraged, with the introduction of laws against providing transport or accommodation to foreigners without permission. In the atmosphere of ideological confrontation (the Central Committee held its first plenum on ideology for twenty years in June 1983), most remaining defenders of human rights, religious activists or unorthodox thinkers (apart from some socialists and Russian nationalists) were cleared off to jail, with no regard to protests from the West. It is striking that the introduction of ‘new political thinking’ in foreign policy under Gorbachev was not a product of glasnost’. Already in December 1984 in London, the then heir-apparent spoke of the need for a ‘new way of political thinking’ for a ‘vulnerable, rather fragile but interconnected world’. The removal of ‘Mr Nyet’ Andrei Gromyko from the Foreign Ministry and his replacement by the smiling and innovative Shevardnadze in July 1985 reflected Gorbachev’s desire to open up foreign policy in both style and substance. Thus, as we have already suggested in other parts of this study, there is no necessary link between openness at home and in foreign policy. Nevertheless, glasnost’ was allowed in discussion of foreign policy only several years after its appearance in domestic policy. Criticism of current foreign policy appeared only in 1988.1 Domestic glasnost’, on the other hand, began to make a real impact on Soviet politics in


December 1986, with the return from exile to Moscow of Sakharov, and the decision to begin to release political and religious prisoners. The release of prisoners of conscience was the most important of Gorbachev’s reforms in cultural and communications policy. It signalled a decisive break with the past. The leadership intended to convey the message that whatever other difficulties Soviet citizens might have in communicating their ideas, they would not normally have to fear the possibility of arrest and incarceration. By the end of 1988 the overwhelming majority of prisoners had been released. The authorities continued to arrest people for political reasons, but those sent to prison had usually been involved in violence between nationalities or armed rebellion (in Transcaucasia or Central Asia). Activists were still arrested for participating in unauthorized demonstrations or distributing unofficial publications in public, but very often these actions were in fact tolerated, and those arrested were released after paying a fine.2 The practice of imprisoning political and religious dissidents in psychiatric hospitals was much diminished. In October 1989 the USSR was readmitted to the World Psychiatric Association, from which it had been excluded six years earlier for the political abuse of psychiatry. Nevertheless, the American and British delegations criticized the Soviet delegation for failing to admit that psychiatric abuse had been a normal feature of political control, organized by the Soviet government.3 Since the Soviet Constitution granted the right to free speech, to organize demonstrations and so on, the onset of glasnost’ did not automatically require a change in the law. The state granted such rights, however, with the aim of strengthening socialism, and reserved to itself the power to determine which actions did actually strengthen socialism and which should be prevented. The principal ‘reform’ under perestroika was the apparent taking of a political decision that the KGB would reduce its intervention in the exercise of these freedoms. In a culture where, as the cliché put it, everything that is not compulsory is banned, it was necessary to regulate the newly-granted freedoms by legislation. Following widespread labour unrest in summer 1989 the USSR Supreme Soviet adopted a ‘Law on Resolving Collective Labour Disputes (conflicts)’ in October 1989, creating a legal framework for strikes. Building on the miners’ strike committees, a network of independent trade unions was created, with the ‘Confederation of Labour’ being formed in April-May 1990. As demonstrations became a normal feature of political life, the authorities began to introduce legislation to regulate them. On the other hand, the law on public associations, including political parties, published in October 1990, appeared to give substantial freedom to the newly-emerging movements. Representatives of the parties were allowed to travel to the West and receive material help from abroad. Of course, as the main adversary of the United States and NATO, the Soviet Union was always the prime target of Western attempts to undermine the


communist system. However, a good case can be made that ever since the Khrushchev period, the limits on the freedom to organize were far greater in China than in the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, because China was seen as a type of strategic ally of the West since the 1970s, the West made less of its dispute with the internal politics of China. The reform era in China since 1978 well predated most reforms in the Soviet Union, but less clearly in terms of political freedoms. To some extent Chinese reforms have been characterized by the loosening of political control, and the emergence of public opinion. Whilst those processes have entailed greater exposure to foreign ideas, there is little evidence that those foreign ideas have had any great impact. Moreover, though the scale of China’s cultural diplomacy since 1978 has undoubtedly increased, it has still been put to the same ends of serving foreign policy as was always the case during the 1970s. Much is made in the Western literature on China’s reform era of the change in ideology that took place at the 3rd Plenum of 1978. This is usually described in terms of the old Maoist slogan of ‘politics in command’ being replaced by a new imperative to place ‘economics in command’. There is, of course, considerable justice in that view since economic modernization was an important part of the vision of the new leadership of the CCP. However, the belief that politics is no longer important would be dangerously misleading. The crucial change in ideology which legitimates the whole reform era, and leads to specific reforms, is the recognition that socialism is far off and not even just beyond the horizon. Though the theory was not clearly articulated until 1987 and the 13th CCP Congress, the notion of ‘primary stage of socialism’ takes the centre of the ideological stage throughout the 1980s. During the primary stage of socialism, because China’s productive forces have not been developed sufficiently, capitalism must be aped, if under the tutelage of the CCP. Economic modernization must be the first priority, and because socialism has not yet been created it can be argued that ‘the law of value’ can apply: undoubtedly one of the lessons intended to be learnt from capitalism. Compromise in economics was also matched by compromise in politics. The CCP can be more tolerant of divergent views and of public opinion without necessarily surrendering its leadership role in the exercise of power. The loosening of political control and the recognition of public opinion were the direct result. However, there were very definite limits imposed by the CCP to the process of relaxation. At the time of the 3rd Plenum, the ‘Democracy Movement’ was born on the streets of Peking and other Chinese cities. Emboldened by the CCP’s apparent commitment to democracy, and encouraged by Deng Xiaoping, there were appeals to many new and foreign ideas, including those of autonomous human rights. Deng Xiaoping reacted quickly to spell out the limits to political liberalization, or rather relaxation since the extension of individual rights has never been part of his agenda. In March 1979 he enunciated


the ‘Four basic principles’ as the limits of the politically possible: adherence to the socialist road, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the leadership of the CCP, and Marxism-Leninism Mao Zedong Thought. The most spectacular case of the international aspect of the Chinese right to organize politically came during the events of May-June 1989 in Peking. The grievances that brought the millions onto the streets were a mix of economic dissatisfaction, student causes and a broader concern with the relative lack of political freedom. Demonstrators carried pictures of Mao and yet raised a Goddess of Democracy in the image of the American Statue of Liberty. The timing of the demonstrations had much to do with the death of the former party leader Hu Yaobang and then the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev for a Sino-Soviet summit. The fact that the demonstrations were allowed to get out of hand—at least as far as the government was concerned—was the result of divisions at the highest level of leadership, as well as concern that a crackdown should not take place in front of the international media assembling for the Sino-Soviet summit. After the summit, and after the purge of the then Party general secretary Zhao Ziyang, martial law was declared and force was used to clear Tiananmen Square and the streets of the capital. Deng Xiaoping had used the armed forces to keep the Party in power, despite the inevitable bad publicity and international sanctions. Following the Peking massacre, and then the ending of communism in Eastern Europe later in the year, the spotlight on human rights issues was turned more on China. Although even during the height of the reforms in the mid-1980s the regime was executing thousands of people the West might have classified as dissidents if they were paying closer attention, in the 1990s the West started paying much closer attention to a much smaller number of cases of dissidents locked up for protests in 1989. China became embroiled in disputes, most notably with the United States, about the linkage of trade concessions to better Chinese behaviour on human rights. Gradually, China allowed many dissidents to go free and even allowed a delegation from Australia to take very tentative steps to monitor Chinese treatment of dissidents.4 Nevertheless, China seemed to be under far less pressure on human rights issues than the Soviet Union was in earlier periods, and the reason for this was a mix of the fact that China posed less of a strategic threat to the West and the Soviet Union was seen more as a part of the Western cultural system. China was seen as a different society in a region where respect for human rights, even in states closely allied to the West, was dubious. Thus the international community did have an impact on the shaping of China’s political system, but only on the farthest edges of the margins, and certainly far less than in the Soviet or East European cases. Not surprisingly, the emergence of what Westerners would describe as an independent legal system remained some way off in China. Nonetheless, compared to the situation during the Cultural Revolution, the legal system was much reformed. A legal basis for the state was regarded in 1978 as a necessary


guarantor of stability and security for economic development This was particularly so for the whole arena of foreign economic relations and trade. The new reform leadership in China as in the Soviet Union argued that foreign companies and countries would not be interested in investment or economic relations with China without the framework of a legal system. The result was a legal system considerably more developed for economic relations between China and the rest of the world than for domestic matters. With China having put reform of the economy before reform of politics, the contrast with the Soviet Union was already clear. While it is not surprising that the smaller states of East Asia and East Europe tended to have similar differences, a closer look at the East European countries reveals even more important distinctions. Hungary was the communist state with the longest experience with political reform, but the way in which it was manifest in foreign policy also depended to a great extent on the fact that ultimately Hungary remained under Soviet domination, even though its political and cultural traditions were much closer to Western Europe. The basic characteristic of the Kadar regime was the evolution of a ‘special relationship’ with the Hungarian intelligentsia after 1956. It was notably more successful than in, for example, either Czechoslovakia or Poland. This was largely a product of the massive force employed by the Soviet Union in 1956, which impressed deeply on the intelligentsia the sense of immovable limits to change, of the futility of overt confrontation with the powers-that-be, and thus the conviction that reform, if it were to be possible at all, could only come from within the regime. At the same time, the 1956 experience impressed the leadership of the Hungarian Socialist Worker Party (HSWP) no less deeply with the lesson that Stalinist repression was not the solution to popular unrest but its cause, and, therefore, that controlled reform was inevitable if long-term political stabilization was to be achieved. This propensity to reform on the part of the Kadar regime in turn persuaded most leading intellectuals and cultural figures to collaborate with the regime. After a period of extremely harsh reprisals in the late 1950s against, in particular, the writers who had played a particularly conspicuous role in 1956, the regime began to soften its approach as it gathered confidence in the ‘consolidation’ of power. A major factor in the change of approach, signalled at the VIII HSWP Congress in 1962 by Kadar’s declaration that ‘he who is not against us is with us’, was the attitude of the Soviet leadership under Khrushchev. Cultural policy in the two countries ran in close parallel at this time. As Soviet writers reemerged from the Gulag, Hungarian writers returned from prison and ended their self-imposed ‘strike’ during which time the most highly respected writers had refused to publish or appear in public in any way. As Solzhenitsyn was published in Moscow, a Hungarian equivalent was found in 1963—Jozsef Lengyel, a writer who presented his own account of his experiences in Soviet labour camps under Stalin.5


Khrushchevite cultural policy continued in Hungary despite the removal of Khrushchev, and became identified with the Kadar regime. It could be summed up as a policy of ‘repressive tolerance’, an inconsistent balancing act which was sustained by the rather surprising degree of shared perceptions between the regime and the intelligentsia on the need for reform and the inevitability of the limits to reform, given the country’s international position of near complete dependence on the Soviet Union. These shared perceptions were reinforced by the lessons Hungarians drew from observation of the Czechoslovak developments of 1968. The major definition of Kadarist cultural policy was provided by the HSWP Central Committee in 1966. The document issued guidelines for publication which became known as the ‘Three Ts’: tamogatott (supported), turt (tolerated), and tiltott (prohibited). Although the state could not be expected to hand over resources to works not judged to be in the ‘social interest’ as defined by official cultural policy and ideology, the possibility of certain non-approved works being published or produced at the author’s or artist’s own expense was admitted. Outright suppression was reserved for works which were seen as coming into head-on collision with the two fundamentals of the political order: the Party’s leading role and the alliance with the Soviet Union. A considerable amount of flexibility and pragmatism was built into this policy both in conception and in implementation. Censorship officially did not exist, and the main means of control of the cultural intelligentsia was self censorship, or ‘self-control’ as Gyorgy Aczel, the HSWP’s cultural and ideological spokesman preferred to put it.6 The Hungarian press and media were, for most of the Kadar period, the most ‘liberal’ in Eastern Europe, but there were perceptible fluctuations in policy implementation over time in response to domestic and international pressures. The first major challenge to Kadarist ‘liberalism’ came with the events in Czechoslovakia in 1968. The impact of this reform crisis was averted in Hungary for some years, indicating three things: (1) the commitment of the Kadar regime to its own reformist course irrespective of events outside; (2) the fatalistic attitude of a large proportion of the Hungarian intelligentsia, who viewed the Czechoslovak reform movement as unrealistic in the light of their own experience in 1956 and therefore accepted (without in any way welcoming or approving) the invasion as inevitable. There was even an undercurrent of resentment among Hungarian intellectuals against the Czech reformers for potentially threatening the generally not intolerable accommodation between regime and intelligentsia established by this time in Hungary; (3) the Soviet Union did not immediately transfer the ‘lessons’ of the Czechoslovak reform experience to other countries in Eastern Europe and were prepared to accept Kadar’s assurances that the Hungarian economic reform could be kept separate from political crisis and the breakdown of Party control.


However, the credibility of Kadar’s reformism in the eyes of the Soviet Union and of his own party’s hard-line wing required some demonstration of clarity in the definition of the limits of cultural freedom (which the 1966 policy statement had left conveniently vague), and determination to enforce those limits in practice. Gyorgy Aczel attempted to set out some more precise guidelines in a major speech in June 1969 in which the essence of the Kadarist policy was preserved. What was rejected was not intellectual pluralism per se, but the notion of ‘Marxist pluralism’.7 But Aczel’s position did allow scope for the continued influence of reform communist ideas inside the HSWP: indeed, in the early 1970s, the career of Imre Pozsgay as a leading figure in cultural policy began to take off. In 1969 and the early 1970s, he published several articles which indicated his own commitment to a remarkably ‘liberal line’, strongly reminiscent of Dubcekite reform communism.8 At this time he was section head of the Central Committee Department of Agitation and Propaganda. But this reform-communist position became increasingly vulnerable to attack from 1971–2, after the political influence of Kosygin declined markedly in the Soviet leadership in favour of more hard-line elements, and the Soviet economic reform itself was abandoned. These developments in turn contributed to the gathering momentum of the anti-reform backlash in Hungary, the strength of which first appeared at the November 1972 Central Committee Plenum, when the first major retreats in the implementation of the economic reform were pushed through.9 However, the hard-liners were restrained from a more thorough clear-out of the Party ‘moderates’ by awareness of the impact of the personnel changes on Western public opinion. While the most hard-line elements no doubt agreed with the East German regime that the era of détente required firmer Abgrenzung, or delineation of the limits of change, Kadar on the other hand is reported to have reminded the Central Committee, in a speech in December 1972 which has never been published, that Hungary’s increased economic dependence on the West as a result of the opening out of the economy in the context of domestic reform and international détente meant it had virtually no effective defence against Western press campaigns in support of dissidents.10 Thus although we see a distinct toughening of political and ideological control over culture in the mid-1970s, nevertheless the treatment of intellectuals remained relatively lenient in comparison with, for example, Czechoslovakia and the GDR in the 1970s, and in general Hungary was able to preserve its reputation as the ‘jolliest barracks in the bloc’. The most severe act of repression was the trial in January 1974 of Miklos Haraszti for ‘grave incitement’, the circulation of a samizdat sociographical piece, Pecerate.11 From the point of view of the Kadar regime in Hungary, managing the domestic repercussions of the Polish crisis was far more difficult than managing the impact of the Czechoslovak crisis of 1968. On the one hand, they understood the Czechoslovak reform movement as something with which they had basically


been in sympathy but which had been allowed to ‘get out of hand’ by the weak leadership and lack of understanding of geopolitics of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. On the other hand, the Polish crisis was something much more threatening, which evoked memories of the mass, spontaneous social revolt of 1956. Although the Kadar regime was careful not to sound too much like the Soviets, Czechs or East Germans in its public commentary on the events in Poland in 1980–1, they were clearly deeply worried by them and turned towards a renewed attempt to clamp down on intellectual dissent in the early 1980s. Controlling the intellectuals was not so easy in the early 1980s as it had been in the early 1970s: 1956 was so much more distant a memory, on the one hand, while, on the other, disillusionment with the regime’s promises of reform had set in by the early 1980s. The Polish crisis activated a more critical intelligentsia in Hungary, and the ‘Democratic Opposition’ emerged. Unofficial publishing began to expand with the regular appearance of several current affairs journals such as Beszelo and A Hirmondo. Laszlo Rajk junior set up an unofficial publishing house, and transformed his Budapest apartment into a ‘boutique’ for the distribution of samizdat materials. A ‘flying university’ on the Polish model was set up and held weekly courses on Hungarian history and philosophy. Kadar’s dissatisfaction with the cultural apparatus was manifested in particular by the removal of Imre Pozsgay from his post as minister of culture in June 1982. He was transferred to the post of chairman of the Patriotic People’s Front, a political backwater, but one which Pozsgay in fact proved able to transform into a legitimate platform for the expression of non-Party, unorthodox views. Under Pozsgay, the PPF press, in particular, its daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet, became increasingly open and critical. As early as April 1983, in a major policy speech to the Central Committee, Kadar warned against tendencies for institutions such as the PPF to be hijacked by ‘hostile elements’.12 But later, in early 1987, the PPF commissioned the report ‘Change and Reform’ which advocated political reform as the essential condition for reversing the economy’s slide into chaos. This caused a political storm, but by this time the HSWP leadership was unable to reimpose party discipline.13 Throughout the early 1980s, the approach to the intelligentsia was conditioned by two countervailing pressures, which account for its incoherence and hesitancy. On the one hand, the true attitude of the leadership to wayward intellectuals was betrayed by the leaking of an HSWP Politburo document which referred to the regime’s critics as ‘enemies’, contrasting markedly with the publicly cultivated image of lenient generosity towards dissidents.14 On the other hand, the regime was desperate to preserve its reputation in the West, without which its economic strategy would have been seriously endangered.15 Thus although reports of increased police harassment of intellectuals occurred with increasing frequency in the Western press, the penalties imposed on dissidents remained light in comparison with those exacted, for example, in the Soviet Union or


Czechoslovakia: suspended sentences or fines, rather than imprisonment.16 In the meantime, Hungarian diplomats embarked upon a veritable charm offensive in the West, and other measures, for example, easing travel regulations and the encouragement of Western tourism, and the sensitive treatment of Western journalists, helped to create a favourable image along with continued protestations of determination to carry through market-type reforms and the boldness of Hungary’s more independent foreign policy line from 1983–4. Signs of the success of the regime in persuading the West of its reformist and ‘liberal’ credentials were the series of visits by leading Western politicians. In September 1983, Geoffrey Howe and George Bush arrived in Budapest and praised Hungary for its human rights record. In 1984 and 1985, a succession of prime ministers from Western countries either visited Budapest or invited Kadar to visit their capitals. The culmination of this Western accolade was Budapest’s triumph as host to the Helsinki follow-up meeting, the Cultural Forum, held in the autumn of 1985. An Alternative Cultural Forum was planned by the opposition intelligentsia, but it was banned at the last minute by the Hungarian authorities, who excluded it from public premises. The Alternative Forum was held anyway in the private flat of a leading dissident. It created only a minor embarrassing hitch to the proceedings, which indicates both the determination of the West to ignore ‘minor blemishes’ in the Hungarian human rights record in order to encourage the relatively independent foreign policy line Hungary was pursuing, and the skill with which Hungarian officials and diplomats had learnt to present the government’s case to the Western media. It seems clear that the level of repression and the impact this had on relations with the West had a great deal to do with features specific to the Hungarian case. The legacy of 1956, the Soviet presence, and cultural connections with the West all helped to shape a distinct Hungarian experience. While similar conclusions about a unique experience can be drawn in the case of the GDR, the specific outcome was very different. In part because of the events in other East European states, the GDR actually saw a strengthening of the role of the SED in the 1970s. The right of control was extended to the management of educational and medical bodies in 1971 and the SED role in the ministries was significantly upgraded in 1976. The strengthening was deemed necessary in part because of what were described as ‘objective laws of development’. The growing complexity and diversity of socio-economic processes was deemed to necessitate greater SED control. Rising political awareness was also said to require increased control, but this was made especially acute by the GDR’s unique position on the front line with West Germany and NATO. Thus in the GDR the trend was precisely the opposite of reform in the sense of greater pluralism and decentralization. In this way it is similar to North Korea. However, it should be pointed out that it was still possible to identify some voices in the GDR at the time who rejected this trend to centralization and laid the basis


for the political pluralism that was to come in 1989. Academic debates in the GDR in the 1970s and 1980s certainly indicated these pluralistic tendencies and they were particularly acute surrounding the Polish events of 1980–1. It was only with the coming to power of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 that the East German dissidents were able to make their views more clear and widely known. Of course, the official position in the GDR remained that perestroika had no relevance to East German conditions and to the end in 1989 a hard face was turned to calls for political pluralism. Given such firmness of view in the GDR, it makes a convenient link back to Vietnam where political reform was also far from the Hungarian or the Soviet models. And yet Vietnam was always vulnerable to pressure from the Soviet Union and to some extent China, and the Vietnamese Communist Party certainly watched the difference in approach to political pluralism with far greater sympathy for the Chinese approach. As economic reform gathered pace after the Party’s Sixth Congress in December 1986 so too, although in a more restricted fashion, did the debate on how Vietnam should be ruled. Increasing attention was given to the need to frame a legal code, with much of the impetus coming from the work of economic renovation. To a degree even greater than in other communist countries, Vietnam has been directly governed for decades by the Communist Party with minimum legal safeguards for citizens. Local cadres exercised extraordinary powers in the areas in which they ruled and resentment against this state of affairs rapidly came to the surface in the more relaxed atmosphere after 1986. Moreover, the architects of economic reform recognized the need for legal reforms not only to protect the citizen, but also to force recalcitrant cadres to implement the reforms themselves. The focus of the debate on legal reform after 1986 centred on the national assembly, which increasingly paid more attention to the drafting and promulgation of laws. Little more than a rubber stamp body before 1986, the national assembly had passed no laws from its creation in 1946 until 1980. Between 1980 and 1987, however, it succeeded in adopting twenty laws and decrees. In 1988 it managed to pass eighteen laws including a Criminal Procedure Code, affirming the principle of presumed innocence and setting out the procedures governing the arrest and detention of suspects. In 1990 the assembly’s target was forty laws and decrees and to make it possible its biannual sessions were extended from ten days to between twenty-five and thirty days. Many of the laws enacted were closely tied to the economic reforms which underlined the need to put in place basic laws on tax, labour and exploitation of natural resources that are essential to Vietnam’s economic renovation and its efforts to attract foreign investors. But perhaps the key pieces of legislation for Vietnam’s citizens over the last decade were the Penal Code and the Code of Penal Procedure. The national assembly has also set itself the goal of overhauling the country’s constitution with the stated aim of bringing about a formal


separation of powers between the Communist Party, the government and the national assembly itself. Vietnam’s progress in enacting legal reforms was acknowledged by Amnesty International in a report in February 1990, although in subsequent reports it was noted that there was significant back-sliding in 1991.17 The human rights organization welcomed moves towards the creation of an independent judiciary, the introduction of the judicial principle that a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty by the court, and a defendant’s right to legal defence by an independent lawyer. In May 1989 an Amnesty delegation visited Vietnam for the first time in ten years to discuss legal reform and human rights violations, an indication in itself of the more international attitude prevailing as a result of the reform movement. One of the results of doi moi (renovation) was that the authorities paid greater attention to international criticism of Vietnam’s human rights record. The Party leader, Nguyen Van Linh is reported to have argued forcefully at a Politburo meeting in August 1987 against Interior Minister Mai Chi Tho for the release of all political prisoners.18 Nearly 500 high-level prisoners from the former South Vietnamese government were released in September 1987 and another 3,820 were granted amnesty for the Tet (New Year) celebrations in February 1988. Moreover, the new Criminal Procedure Code contained no provision for detention without trial and it appeared to render untried detention for ‘reeducation’ illegal. Amnesty International also acknowledged steps taken by the government to prevent torture and ill-treatment and the denunciation of such abuses in the media. A stronger legal framework meant greater protection not only for individuals, but also for minorities. This was particularly the case for Vietnam’s Chinese minority who had undergone considerable discrimination and repression in 1978– 9 as Hanoi’s relations with Peking deteriorated. In a meeting in July 1987 with several prominent Chinese citizens in Ho Chi Minh City, the Party leader, Nguyen Van Linh said that the Chinese community was ‘protected by court of law’.19 New decrees affecting ethnic Chinese assured them of the same rights as Vietnamese citizens. As with other legal reforms, the new measures had an economic dimension as Hanoi needed the skills of the ethnic Chinese if its economic reforms were to succeed. In the course of 1989 the considerable gains that doi moi had brought Vietnam since the Sixth Party Congress came under threat. The crisis of international communism in China, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe inevitably had an enormous impact on the Party leadership in Hanoi, which had long prided itself on its ‘internationalism’. Domestic factors too contributed to a rigorous application of the brakes to the whole reform process. The results were severe, especially in the realm of social and political reform. But given the different experiences with greater pluralism in East Europe and China, there was no clear


evidence that Vietnam could not restrain its political reform while retaining other reforms such as in economics. In sum, reforms of the political and legal system have clearly taken place in at least four of the states under consideration. The Soviet and Chinese cases support the argument that internal factors are of primary importance in shaping the pattern and process of openness. Nevertheless, the pattern of domestic reform is not a sufficient explanation for the pattern of openness in foreign policy. In the cases of Hungary and Vietnam internal factors were clearly important in shaping the reforms, although the linkage to pressures from the international system seem stronger. But we know that in the end Hungary abandoned the Communist Party system entirely while the Vietnamese and Chinese communist parties continue to fight for a very restricted version of political diversity. Thus the size of the state and its position in the international system has something to do with the nature of the reforms adopted, but so too does the political/cultural context. As we have already suggested earlier in this section, in East Asia, the momentum towards political pluralism is very different than it is in Europe and there is greater hope on the part of the ruling Communist Party that openness need not mean the abolition of Communist Party rule. REFORM OF THE MEDIA One of the most stark differences between opened and closed states is their approach to the media. In 1975 an official Soviet publication described the role of the media as being ‘to organize and mobilize the masses for the fulfillment of the tasks set by the Communist Party and the Soviet government’.20 In more open Western societies the media are seen as a way to provide information that allows for better decisions about politics and are therefore crucial to effective criticism of government. Of course it would be simplistic to suggest that all communist states were entirely closed before they embarked on major reforms. Indeed, it can be argued that precisely because the media were not quite as closed as the regimes would have liked, and the people became skilled at reading esoteric communications, that information was available that laid the basis for future reforms. Factional politics often revealed new information, albeit in the cause of a new political line, that suggested the official views were not always to be believed because ‘verdicts might be reversed’. A closed media made it difficult for the outside world to read the signals coming from the closed states of the communist world. The arcane skills of tealeaf reading in studies of these societies helped to polarize views about the communist states as ‘experts’ fought over interpretation of far from sufficient data. Because of the paucity of information it was not surprising that so many errors were made in reading the intentions of these states. Those ‘insiders’ with information gathered from intelligence sources often claimed to know the truth,


when in reality they were merely marginally better informed about enigmatic politics. When reforms came to the media of the communist states, reform also had to come to the foreign specialists. The plethora of new information meant that debates could no longer be deciphered using the same tools and old certainties of analysis had to be junked. There was certainly far more ‘noise’ mixed in with the ‘signals’ than there used to be, although in general it should be noted that the far greater openness in the media did make a significant contribution to building greater trust between the reforming regime and the outside world. Thus reform of the media was a key feature affecting foreign relations, not to mention the media of the already more open states. The most dramatic example of reform of the media was in the Soviet Union. Journalists were no longer required to reflect the opinion of the political leadership, although the reforms were qualified to some extent for a time in 1991.21 Under glasnost’, the official press represented a broad spectrum of views. This reflected, but also went beyond, the spectrum of views in the leadership from the radical Aleksander Yakovlev to the conservative Yegor Ligachev (excluded from the leadership at the XXVIII Party Congress in July 1990). The radical newspapers and journals, led by Moscow News, Ogonek, Argumenty i fakty and Znamya, went further than Gorbachev in criticizing the Soviet past and present and demanding greater democracy and a faster move to the market. The newspaper Izvestia and the journals Kommunist, Izvestia TsK KPSS and Novyi mir tended to reflect Gorbachev’s views, while Pravda and Sovetskaya Rossiya were more conservative. Molodaya gvardiya was a neo-Stalinist journal and Nash sovremennik and Literaturnaya Rossiya advocated Russian nationalist positions. Generally, glasnost’ went furthest in Moscow, Leningrad and the Baltic republics, and made the least progress in Central Asia and rural Russia. The local Transcaucasian media reflect the predominant ethnocentrisms. The situation changed after the 1990 republican elections, especially in the Western Ukraine, where the local Soviet press became staunchly anti-communist. The decision to allow live television broadcast of the first Congress of People’s Deputies in MayJune 1989 had a major impact on linking the processes at the top with the population as a whole. Millions sat glued to their sets instead of going to work. The participation of radical deputies in studio discussions, and such programmes as Vzgliad (View), Pyatoe koleso (Fifth Wheel) and the outspoken 600 sekund (600 Seconds) heightened the awareness of the citizens and aroused the ire of the conservatives. The area of nationality policy was one where glasnost’ was in short supply. The central press and television launched what Vera Tolz described as a ‘campaign of misinformation…unprecedented in the era of glasnost’ following Lithuania’s declaration of independence in March 1990.22 The position of the Lithuanian government was hardly reported on Soviet television, but the views


of the ‘internationalists’ who oppose secession were carried regularly. Similarly, the views of the national movements of Estonia, Latvia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia received scant coverage. Anger in Georgia about Moscow’s coverage of the massacre of Georgian demonstrators in Tbilisi on 9 April 1989 led the Georgian equivalent of Gosteleradio to co-produce with the BBC a television documentary. This was broadcast in Georgia and Britain in November 1989.23 Such cooperation between a Soviet republic and a foreign broadcasting organization to counter Moscow’s propaganda would have been impossible even a year earlier. From late 1986 foreign access to the central media on questions of international relations became much more frequent. Visiting politicians, including those less friendly towards the USSR, contributed to the newspapers and were interviewed on television. Margaret Thatcher in a 50-minute live television interview in March 1987 was able to explain to the Soviet public the rationale for Britain’s defence policy and inform her viewers, perhaps for the first time, about Soviet nuclear weapons deployments.24 For Western journalists in the Soviet Union, life became easier. With the occasional significant exception, they received their visas without undue delay and faced less interference. Permission was more frequently granted for travel outside Moscow, except to areas of ethnic unrest at times of tension. Thus foreign journalists were not allowed in Armenia during the largest demonstrations of 1988, in Baku during the suppression of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan in January 1990, in Lithuania after the declaration of independence or in Azerbaijan during the September 1990 elections (when Soviet journalists from outside Azerbaijan were also banned). Barring a few hundred copies available in Moscow kiosks since early 1989, foreign non-communist newspapers were virtually not sold outside hotels. Jamming of foreign radio stations ended, however (the BBC Russian Service being an early beneficiary in 1986), and Soviet citizens were not afraid of appearing even on the US financed Radio Liberty, which was jammed until November 1988. Interestingly, as domestic politics opened, the numbers of those listening to foreign radio decreased. One analysis suggested that in 1984 the Voice of America (VOA) was heard by 14–18 per cent of the adult population, but only 7.7 per cent in 1990. Corresponding figures for Radio Liberty were 8–12 per cent down to 5.4 per cent and the BBC World Service down from 7–10 per cent to 6 per cent.25 At least in this respect, domestic openness led to a degree of ‘closure’ to the outside world. Amnesty International, which used to be denounced as a CIA front for its campaigns on behalf of Soviet political prisoners, was rehabilitated and opened an office in Moscow in January 1991. Its survey on the death penalty, When the State Kills, was distributed in a Russian translation of 10,000 copies with a foreword by Fedor Burlatsky, head of the official Soviet Committee on Humanitarian Issues.26 An even more far-reaching development was the granting


of permission for Posev, the publishing house of the Frankfurt-based anticommunist Russian émigré NTS (Popular and Labour Alliance), to open a shop in Moscow to sell its publications, and to distribute its journal Grani to subscribers in the USSR. Such actions went a long way towards reducing the isolation of Russians in the Soviet Union from those abroad, and thereby returning Russia to the international community. In the Brezhnev era, travellers suspected of taking samizdat out of the Soviet Union or bringing religious literature into it could expect to have their luggage searched. By 1990, with the mass importing of bibles being allowed, interference by customs officers was sharply reduced, although reportedly a list of banned books was maintained. Controls on the export of unofficial literature were made redundant by the widespread availability in Moscow of fax machines. Producers of journals were able to fax their latest issue to colleagues in the West, who then supplied them to Western radio stations for broadcasting back to the Soviet Union. Video and the earlier tape recorders also helped undermine the system’s central control of information through the news media. Even such simple technology as the 40m short-wave radios were part of the growing process whereby ‘personal electronic media’ were transforming the state’s ability to dominate its people’s thinking.27 While fax machines and personal computers were regularly brought into the Soviet Union from the West for independent organizations, there was still a problem with importing photocopiers. Mail being sent into the Soviet Union was also checked. By the late 1980s there appeared to be no legal barrier to Soviet citizens joining electronic mail networks, facilitating the transmission and receiving of data to and from the West. These networks, either based in the West or run by joint ventures, required payment in hard currency. Glasnet, based in Stanford, California, began accepting payment in roubles. Soviet users of these systems needed to acquire a modem, but their import and installation was legal. The major problem was the lack of direct dialling out of the USSR, and still more seriously, the shortage of phone lines. Indeed this last was the main obstacle to the oldfashioned phone call conducted between two human beings. In 1989 the Soviet Union had only 28 million phones (one for every ten inhabitants). The quality of telephone links was a major obstacle to greater Soviet participation in the world economy. In many parts of the Soviet Union it was not possible to make a phone call abroad. Western companies were involved since early 1988 in discussions about joint ventures to modernize Soviet telecommunications.28 The problems caused by the lack of a comprehensive telephone directory for Moscow were alleviated by the publication of Information Moscow containing phone numbers of offices, hotels, embassies and journalists. The volume was printed in Britain and sold for hard currency. An official directory published biennially had a print of only 250,000 and contained only official numbers.


At the end of the 1980s new legislation was introduced in order to regulate the media. A presidential decree on television and radio proposed a new legal framework, giving Soviets and political parties the right to open broadcasting stations.29 Of greater significance was the Press Law, adopted by the USSR Supreme Soviet in June 1990 after nearly a year’s debate. All publications with a print of over 1,000 copies had to be registered, but registration could only be refused if the law was violated, and there was a right of appeal. No censorship was allowed, except for state secrets and incitement to ethnic or religious hatred.30 Nevertheless the censorship organization Glavlit continued to work until June 1991, with 6,000 employees in Moscow alone, reading the whole of the registered and unregistered press, but only after publication.31 At the time of the revolution in August 1991 it was not censorship which prevented publication, but the shortage of paper and adequate printing facilities. Few could doubt that the greater pluralism of views and information in the media in the Soviet Union had come a long way. Despite some retrenchment in 1991, the emergence of more independent republic-level media helped ensure that the trend to openness continued. The election of a non-Communist Party president of the Russian Republic increased the pace of reform and to an important extent reinforced the link between Communist Party rule and a closed media. The opening of the media in the Soviet Union was part of the broader reforms and for many in the West it provided some of the most powerful evidence that the Soviet Union really was changing. The failure of the conservative coup in August 1991 owed a great deal to the changes in Soviet society manifest in the more open media. The contrasts with China could hardly be more stark, although within the context of limited political reform in China, reform in media policy in China has in many ways been one of the most spectacular reforms of the post-Mao period.32 At the time of Mao’s death in 1976 the number of newspapers and journals freely available to the Chinese population was extremely limited. There was a tight censorship exercised over the print media, whereby everything to be published had first to be approved by the CCP’s Propaganda Department. Two obvious consequences were that there was a high degree of self-censorship amongst writers of all kinds, and that the contents of the print media were both fairly homogeneous and highly politicized. One less obvious consequence was that the distribution of a large proportion of all publications was restricted. The CCP Propaganda Department had created a system in which while some publications were openly published, many more were not and there were a number of different categories of restricted distribution.33 Not all those categories of restricted publication and distribution indicated secret or politically sensitive materials, though they were often treated as though that was the case. For example, from 1961 until the late 1970s all local daily newspapers in China—freely available at Chinese post offices during those


years—were classified as ‘for circulation only within China’. Foreigners found in possession of these local papers would certainly have them confiscated and risked punitive action. All this changed rapidly in and after 1977, and the nature and speed of change is the more remarkable because it preceded the 3rd Plenum. In several ways the publications arena was the first to feel the impact of reform, doubtless because the CCP’s Propaganda Department had been a stronghold of the ‘Gang of Four’ and in rejection of the Cultural Revolution after their arrest it was possible for the new leadership to introduce a completely new leadership. Within five years the number and range of publications had expanded out of all recognition. For example, in 1976 there had been thirty-one journals devoted to art and literature in the whole of China. By 1981 there were estimated to be some 1,300. In 1978, China published 14,987 books, 930 magazines (of all kinds), and 186 newspapers (at provincial level and above). By 1988 these figures had risen to more than 65,000 books for the year; 7,000 magazines; and 800 newspapers.34 Two major changes which facilitated the massive increase in publishing activities were the introduction of incentive schemes for publishers designed to ensure more efficient use of existing resources, and an alteration to censorship procedures. Publishers were encouraged to produce more books and journals where they had the spare capacity, and to that end were allowed to use any additional profit thereby generated as they saw fit. New regulations for political control by the CCP Propaganda Department similarly provided cadres with more leeway. The assumption of guilt was lifted, and only works considered controversial or politically sensitive had to be referred to the CCP Propaganda Department for approval, although writers and editors could still run into severe problems after publication. Certainly until well into the 1980s the major restraint on the publishing industry, as in the Soviet case, was the lack of paper rather than any political considerations. Publishers became hungry to produce books and journals for an avaricious reading public. When insufficient material was found in Chinese they turned readily to translations from foreign languages. Though it would be easy to overstate the extent to which foreign ideas were thus imported into China, it was nonetheless a channel of access. Even the most unlikely Western writings began to appear at a very early stage in China’s reform era. Thus, Orwell’s 1984 was published in translation first in 1979. Necessarily, the proportion of restricted publications declined dramatically during the 1980s and by June 1989 it had become commonplace for foreigners to obtain and be allowed to keep the lower categories of restricted publications.36 By far the most sensational aspect of these reforms in the print media during the post-Mao era relates to their content and the evolution of an articulated public opinion. This was a public opinion that only fully found its voice during


May 1989 when the demonstrations in Peking were both supported and reported as contemporary news items by journalists. However, its evolution can be traced as far back as the late 1970s. A ‘lobby literature’ established itself early in the reform era: the short story, particularly those published in the numerous and increasing number of literary magazines, became the vehicle for social, political and even economic causes.37 The fictionalization of fact to publicize a particular case, or to political ends—‘reportage literature’ (baogao wenxue)—has a long tradition in China, but during the 1980s lobby literature developed far beyond reportage and into the realms of imaginative writing.38 As might be expected, at the same time the range of content of the print media expanded well beyond what had been previously conceivable. Pulp fiction, as well as ‘art for art’s sake’, became possible and popular. With one important exception these reforms did not reflect greatly on foreign policy or foreign relations. Foreign policy does not appear to have been a matter for debate. On the other hand, the CCP’s foreign policy from the late 1970s on has been a crucial plank in the drive to modernize: abroad is the source of the necessary wisdom and technology. Even so, the extent of openness with respect to ‘things foreign’ is fairly limited. Wang Meng—a well-known author and the minister of culture from 1984 to 1989—wrote a story in the early 1980s which summarized the general attitude. Because of deep rooted cultural differences Chinese feel less alienated in China than outside the country, so the sooner technological advances are assimilated the faster the rest of the world can be safely ignored once again.39 To some extent this was an extreme view, but it did highlight the extent to which Chinese tended to see themselves as part of a separate world where even overseas Chinese were more part of the Chinese system than part of the West. This tendency to sino-centrism meant that China could stress its own particularities as a reason for ignoring the events in Eastern Europe in 1989. By contrast, Vietnam, with a very different cultural identity, and certainly the Soviet Union which usually saw itself as part of Europe, found it much harder to ignore the implications of the revolutions of 1989. This is not to suggest that the Chinese intelligentsia was prepared to ignore either its own experience in 1989 or that of the East Europeans, but it seemed to be true that the size, culture and history of China made its people less vulnerable to external shocks. The emergence of greater variety, a wider diversity of views, and of public opinion affected the media in general, and not just the print media. Radio changed the least during the 1980s, television the most. In 1978 Chinese television services were extremely rudimentary. There were no specific TV journalists: news items were from the official Xinhua news agency texts, and the remaining programmes were films. Two hours a night with three at weekends was the norm. In 1978 only 4 per cent of urban Chinese households had access to black and white TV sets (there was no colour service at that time: there are no statistics available on colour TV sets for that year).


By 1983, 83 per cent of Chinese urban households had colour TV sets, and by 1990 China was the world’s largest TV manufacturer, with exports of 1.89 million in the first half of the year.40 All this expansion of hardware was a direct result of openness: broadcasting and manufacturing equipment came from Japanese and US investment in Shanghai and the Special Economic Zones (SEZ). Openness was less evident, though not absent, in programming. Western expertise and assistance was introduced in developing the new industry, and some programmes were bought in from foreign TV companies. The Man from Atlantis and Upstairs, Downstairs were two notable hits, though the fact that they were repeated several times during the 1980s probably has more to do with availability than popularity. On the whole, the foreign input in the development of programmes was technical and indirect. Nonetheless, openness also had an impact here. Thus, in the immediate aftermath of 4 June 1989 and the entry of troops into Tiananmen Square, some newscasters broadcast appeals in English for the unofficial truth to be told. Such courageous action has clear precedents in Hungary and Czechoslovakia in 1956 and 1968. However, even by the standards of May 1989 such action was a direct challenge to political authority and outside the bounds of permissible political behaviour: the newscasters were responding more to the norms of international journalism than Chinese political culture. Interestingly, Chinese TV programmes have been sold quite widely around the world during the 1980s. As might be expected, documentaries about Chinese traditions and serializations of the Chinese classics have been popular throughout the Chinese-inhabited areas of South-East Asia. However, in and after 1987 Chinese TV programmes and films dealing with economic reform in China were shown on Soviet television and throughout (then) communist East Europe and according to a Chinese source were popularly received.41 The immediate crisis of 4June 1989 in China was, in fact, a good indicator of the extent of reform in communications during the previous ten years, as well as of the extent to which China was now open and could not be sealed off from the rest of the world. Like China’s TV network during the 1970s, the telephone service was extremely rudimentary. There was no international direct dialling, there were less than 2 million telephones in the whole country (and considerable fewer lines) with about 1.2 million in cities and 700,000 in the countryside;42 and few long-distance lines within China even after a micro-wave facility was developed to link 26 of China’s (then 29) provincial level units in 1976. Nonlocal calls had to be booked well in advance and were subject to political and administrative controls. Automatic dialling, IDD (with 182 countries), considerably more domestic long distance trunk lines and fax and computer data transmission facilities were introduced during the 1980s. By 1990 there were 13.5 million telephones throughout China.43 In consequence, as the dramatic events of May and June


1989 developed it was possible for those outside China to keep in immediate touch with those inside. Telephone calls were an obvious link with the rest of the world, but it was at this time that fax and computer networks really came into their own. As controls were reimposed (or rather as the attempt was made to reimpose controls) on international telephone calls, radio and television links, computer data transmission facilities remained internationally active. ‘Truth from fax’ replaced ‘Truth from Facts’44 and NBC News president Michael Gartner called faxes and photocopiers ‘the wall posters of this generation’.45 At the time of earlier crises in the communist world, including in Hungary in 1956, the conditions, including the technological ones, were vastly different. In fact, it was only in the 1980s that Hungarian media policy opened up on an ad hoc basis, although it was as a product of the sort of competing domestic and international pressures evident more in the Soviet than Chinese case. A new Press Law was passed in 1986 in response to the Soviet lead in glasnost’, but it was not satisfactory from many points of view. The right to found a newspaper was given only to officially constituted organizations: state organs, economic and social bodies and legal associations. Until a new law on the right to form associations was passed, the press remained very much under Party control, albeit exercised in a characteristically tolerant manner and with increasing incoherence as the regime disintegrated. A milestone in press policy was marked at the time of the Helsinki Cultural Forum in Budapest in September 1985, when, for the first time in Eastern Europe, major Western newspapers were put on sale for local currency at street news kiosks. Hitherto, these had only been available in the exclusive hotels for hard currency. Criticism of the limitations on press freedom by journalists were raised in a document demanding further reform of the media, written by twenty-two journalists and published in mid-1987 through the Patriotic People’s Front. But by 1988, political control of the media had virtually collapsed. In 1989, a new form of intervention in the media appeared in the form of Rupert Murdoch and other Western press magnates, who began buying into popular newspapers and showing the way to freedom with a characteristic blend of scandal-mongering and pornography. Nothing quite so dramatic took place in the GDR until reunification with the West, although the unique position of a divided country created very special limits on the type of openness in the GDR. There was a relatively high level of newspaper consumption in East Germany, and nearly universal ownership of radios and televisions. This made the public media important instruments of socialization and political propaganda. The GDR press was organized on the basis of Lenin’s statement that a newspaper is ‘not merely a collective propagandist and collective agitator, it is also a collective organizer’. The function of the GDR media was to give people what they need, that is ‘social information’ which will allow readers to see how the various events in the world


around them fit into the overall pattern of historical necessity as interpreted by the Party. The overall structure of the GDR press reflected not only the dominating influence of the SED and its specialist organizations (such as the Department of Agitation and Propaganda) but also the deep-rooted German tradition of provincialism.46 There were two colour GDR television programmes, which together offered between 19 and 20 hours of viewing. The second programme was generally regarded as the most high-brow of the two, much of its output consisting of theatre, opera, classical concerts and ‘serious’ films. Much of the output of the other programme was devoted to sport, old movies, light entertainment and some Western serials. One interesting—although not altogether successful—attempt to counter the influence of West German television was the broadcasting twice a week of a programme entitled Der Schwarze Kanal (‘The Black Channel’), which took excerpts from different Western programmes and news items, and subjected them to a critique from a communist and Marxist-Leninist perspective. Because West German TV stations penetrated most of the GDR, with the exception of the Dresden region and part of north-eastern Mecklenburg, the GDR faced unique problems in trying to maintain a closed media policy. Honecker himself acknowledged in 1973 that it was no longer possible to prevent East German citizens watching West German TV, and the official proscription of Western television and radio programmes was—de facto— removed. Not only was cultural policy liberalized in the early 1970s, but there was also a marked increase in contacts between the two German states—largely as a result of the Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin, signed in 1971, and the Basic Treaty of December 1972. For example, whereas 2.6 million people from the FRG and West Berlin had visited the GDR and East Berlin in 1970, the figure soared to about 8 million in 1973.47 Similarly, telephone calls from West to East rose from 700,000 in 1970 to 16,700,000 in 1976. By 1984, the figure had reached 24 million.48 Given this expansion in the GDR’s ‘openness’ to the outside world, the SED realized that it needed to develop other techniques for guaranteeing political control and ideological clarity. The result was the policy of Abgrenzung, and its counterpart, Annäherung. Abgrenzung (which means ‘demarcation’ or ‘delimitation’) meant that a clear ideological, cultural and political line was to be drawn between the capitalist West (especially the FRG) and the socialist East. At the same time, East Germans were to be encouraged to deepen their contacts with their socialist neighbours and allies, and to regard these people as their new ‘kinsmen’: this was the thrust of the policy of Annäherung. Abgrenzung was to be enforced by a number of administrative proscriptions. Certain categories of GDR citizens, such as Party and state functionaries, and military officers and conscripts, were forbidden to have any contact with foreign visitors. To justify this, the authorities developed the notion of the Geheimnissträger (‘carrier of


secrets’), who was forbidden contact with Westerners, ostensibly because of his privileged access to confidential information. This concept was so widely interpreted that it is estimated that as many as one to two million citizens were cut off from enjoying the benefits of détente. A ‘visitors’ book’ was also introduced in which the names of foreign visitors had to be registered.50 Furthermore, with the introduction of military education in schools in 1978, the West Germans were increasingly portrayed as the Klassenfeind—the ‘class enemy’. This new policy of ‘delimitation’ was given ideological justification in 1971 at the SED’s Eighth Party Congress. Erich Honecker argued that within the divided Germany, two nations were now developing: a ‘capitalist’ nation in the FRG, and a ‘socialist’ nation in the GDR. This led to a spate of articles and books by East German historians seeking to refute the widely held conception in the GDR that both German states shared a common history and culture, and were part of one German nation. This policy was reinforced in the early 1970s by a number of legal and administrative changes which attempted to eradicate the notion of ‘Germanness’ from everyday life. For example, in 1974 the Constitution was amended: instead of the GDR being described as a ‘socialist state of the German nation’ as it was in the 1968 Constitution, the state was henceforth to be seen as a ‘socialist state of workers and peasants’. Similarly, the words of the East German national anthem—penned by Johannes Becher whilst in exile in the Soviet Union in 1943—were quietly dropped because they contained the now ideologically unsound words, ‘Arisen out of the ruin and headed for the future, let us serve Germany, our united Fatherland’.51 Vietnam, which had also once been a divided country, found that real divisions lingered long after formal reunification. Indeed, the legacy of the different political culture of the south was one of the key forces for openness in the media when the broader reform programme got underway. The launching of the Vietnamese reform programme, at the Sixth Party Congress in December 1986 led to a greater tolerance and pluralism in the arts, media and religion. One of the first signs of this was the appearance of articles in the Party newspaper, Nhan Dan (People’s Daily) under the byline ‘NVL’, the initials of Party leader, Nguyen Van Linh. The articles pressed the need for economic reform, urged greater democracy in Party life and strongly criticized middle-level bureaucrats who were resisting the tide of reform. It remains unclear whether the articles were written from a position of political strength or weakness. In many ways they had a Gorbachevian ring to them of appealing to the people against the conservative hierarchy. Linh himself acknowledged authorship of the articles in October 1987, telling one interviewer that the initials stood for ‘noi va lam’ or speak and act. The important point, however, was that the appearance of the ‘NVL’ articles gave journalists and the media generally an apparently high level endorsement to be


more critical of the established order.52 The ‘NVL’ articles underlined the commitment of Linh to the reform programme and led to the adoption of a more open press policy. The first article appeared in Nhan Dan on 25 May 1987. For several months the articles urging the public to act against bureaucratic tyrants and bullies produced only a dreadful silence. But by August 1987 the Party daily was receiving 600 letters a month denouncing various government agencies and officials. The fight initiated by ‘NVL’ against corruption and abuse of power encouraged private and public criticism of public policy that fuelled a more liberal trend. The press was particularly affected and became a more aggressive critic of government policy.53 In some cases it was instrumental in removing local Party bosses who had flagrantly abused power and obstructed reforms. In the first six months of 1988, no fewer than 1,100 Party cadres were tried for corruption, often after they had been exposed in the press. The openness with which Vietnam’s leaders’ shortcomings were revealed in the press in 1987–8 was unparalleled. Journalists and the media generally were encouraged to expose failings at all levels. A Party directive from the Central Committee in September 1987 emphasized that not only journalists, but every Party member and citizen had the right to criticize officials guilty of wrongdoing. It also warned officials against attempting to harass or punish those who documented their shortcomings in the press. In August 1987 an editorial in Nhan Dan described the struggle for economic reform and renovation as a matter of life and death for Vietnamese society. In December the same year a communiqué following a ten day meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee painted a gloomy picture of economic hardship and political mismanagement. The press talked of a serious slump in grain production, and constant shortages; of falling industrial growth and declining standards of living. In an extraordinary condemnation of its own failures the Party communiqué, which received wider attention in the media than usual, held the leadership responsible for the crisis in Vietnam, accusing itself of bureaucratic incompetence and undisciplined centralism. And in a quite remarkable call for any ruling Communist Party, it appealed for a struggle against the state of the bureaucracy and its oppression of the masses.54 The initial openness in the press came from Nhan Dan, but the trend to a more critical press soon spread to Ho Chi Minh City, with Saigon Giai Phong (Saigon Liberation) running a column written by its own readers entitled ‘Speaking Frankly and Truthfully’. Another Saigon publication Tuoi Tre (Youth) opened a complaints department with reporters assigned to investigate readers’ problems. Issues such as drug addiction, prostitution and draft evasion which were simply not discussed in the press before 1987 now became the subject of heated debate. Western culture, previously covered only in a critical fashion, was now written about in a more dispassionate manner. Even beauty contests became the subject of a column in Nhan Dan.


The Vietnamese reforms created a far more positive atmosphere for foreigners which not only encouraged some of the international economic contacts we have noted in earlier sections, but also enhanced links with the international news media. It became far easier for foreign journalists to obtain visas for Vietnam and even the BBC, which has a large audience for its Vietnamese service, was allowed to send journalists. Reuters and the Far Eastern Economic Review established bureaus in Hanoi in 1990 along with AFP which had been there since the 1950s. The Vietnamese reforms were obviously affected by the openness in both the Soviet Union and China, although the nature of the issues raised had more to do with local agendas. More like China than the Soviet Union or Hungary or the GDR, Vietnam managed to make use of a limited degree of openness to remain basically closed. Perhaps the proximity of the East Europeans to the power of the Western media made the openness all the more complete and challenging. THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF CULTURE The general aim of cultural relations with foreign countries for communist states can be expressed in terms outlined by John Morison for the Soviet case.55 The Soviet authorities have sought through cultural exchanges to promote the Russian language, ‘Soviet culture’ and the policies of the Soviet government in the world arena, while attempting to maximize the acquisition of the latest scientific and technological data from abroad. On the other hand, the United States has seen participation in cultural exchange as a way of promoting change in the Soviet system.56 Under perestroika, it became easier for this aim to be achieved, as those promoting cultural exchanges in Moscow came to share the aim of opening up Soviet society. Soviet organizations sent business people, economists, lawyers and sociologists to Western business schools, universities and colleges, to learn the techniques required for the transition to a market economy and a law-based state (pravovoe gosudarstvo). Some of these projects were financed by Western governments and charities, such as the Soros Foundation; others were based on exchange agreements between Soviet and Western institutions, whose number grew significantly under perestroika. Nevertheless, the disruption caused by perestroika in general, and by the reorganization of education in particular, combined with the desire of Soviet educational institutions to earn hard currency rather than fulfil governmentimposed exchange programmes, prevented many Western students from participating in normal academic exchanges in the USSR. Access to archives remained a problem; as certain archives were opened to the public for the first time, the authorities often prefered to allow Soviet historians, to see them before foreigners. Soviet historians, however, saw a need for greater links with their foreign colleagues. Since 1988 round tables between Soviet and Western historians saw at least some of the former much more willing to understand


Western interpretations of Soviet history, as traditional Stalinist and Leninist views were discredited.57 Support from the West of a rather different kind was given to some Azerbaijani historians: the Turkish government allowed them access to military archives to assist the Azerbaijani claim to Nagorny Karabakh.58 At another level, Western university and school students were able to visit Soviet families and stay at their homes, allowing the new generation of Soviet citizens to have more exposure to Western attitudes than was possible in the past. The new laws on joint ventures had an important influence on cultural cooperation. While there was no foreign stake in the broadcasting media, foreign capital provided improved printing techniques and higher quality paper for new periodical publications, especially in the area of business information.59 The Moscow ‘Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia’ (International Relations) publishing house and the London socialist publishers, Verso, established a joint venture, Interverso. This translated and published in the Soviet Union previously banned works such as Isaac Deutscher’s The Unfinished Revolution and Herbert Marcuse’s writings, as well as bringing Soviet works to the English-speaking reader.60 The Soviet film industry had for decades produced high-quality material without foreign assistance—from Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev to Tengiz Abuladze’s Repentance. Stanislav Govorukhin’s film You Can’t Live Like was a clear indictment of communist rule, from the assassination of the Tsar’s family onwards. One can surmise that the fact that it was jointly made with the participation of a West German firm helped the director through pressure from Soviet censorship.61 In May 1990 the ‘Soviet/British Creative Association’ was established by (British) Central Television, Goskino (the State Committee for Cinematography), Ogonek and two British production companies. The Association promoted co-production and the exchange of films and television programmes. In order to circumvent the problem of rouble inconvertibility, Western companies supplied programmes to Soviet television in exchange for air-time for advertisements. This air-time was sold to Western advertising agencies for hard currency, and the agencies then sold the slots to Western companies.62 Similar trends can be seen in the Chinese case, although given the barbarisms of the Cultural Revolution, it is clear that China had further to travel down the road of reform than the Soviet Union. China’s cultural relations with the rest of the world have increased in number since the beginning of reform in 1978. China is a regular venue for international exhibitions and conferences. There have been several extremely successful cooperative cultural ventures between Chinese and foreign companies; and, since 1978, China’s international cultural activities have moved from an almost exclusive focus on the Third World, to include the advanced industrialized countries.


China’s participation in international sports provides startling evidence of the change wrought by reform. In November 1979 the International Olympic Committee reintegrated China into the world Olympic movement. However, despite the country’s evident keenness for participation and success in international competition, China boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics along with most of the Western nations. Contrariwise, it participated in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, boycotted by most of the communist states. In 1990, Peking hosted the Asian Games and made a definite claim to host the 2000 Olympics. In between, Chinese athletes participated in international sport events at which they have long excelled, such as table tennis and volleyball and others where their involvement has had a much shorter history, such as soccer. By the late 1980s, an average of twenty-five art exhibitions a year were sent abroad by the Ministry of Culture and twelve foreign art exhibitions toured China. Each year, half a dozen cultural delegations were sent abroad, and about the same number received. For example, in the first half of 1990, delegations visited Singapore, Burma, Thailand, Cyprus, (North) Korea and Angola; and were received from Australia, Ethiopia, (North) Korea and the UAE. Similarly, on an annual basis the China Performing Arts Agency has been responsible for sending about twenty to thirty troupes abroad and receiving the same number in China.63 The range of foreign films, plays, music and opera now shown and performed in China has expanded way beyond the strict limits set during the Cultural Revolution. In the late 1960s and 1970s there were even times when composers such as Beethoven were regarded as politically dangerous and subversive. Menuhin, Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Stern are amongst those who have performed in China since 1978.64 Turandot, Carmen, Tosca, La Traviata, Cosi Fan Tutte, La Boheme and Madame Butterfly have all been staged in the same period.65 A first American musical to be performed in China, The Music Man, was staged in 1987, and was so successful that it has led to the staging of the first Chinese-written Western-style musical, based on Cao Yu’s Sunrise66 Foreign films have been shown in large numbers throughout China, and some of the most successful have been joint ventures. During the 1980s some 230 feature films and documentaries were produced from cooperation between Chinese and foreign companies. Perhaps the most famous is The Last Emperor, so successful in the 1987 US Academy of Cinematographic Arts Awards. At the same time, however, Chinese filmmakers also achieved considerable acclaim both inside China and internationally for a large number of new films, including Yellow Earth, Hibiscus Town, Red Sorghum, The Black Cannon Incident and King of the Children.67 However, perhaps the cultural distance travelled from the Cultural Revolution is best measured not by the six cooperative factories established in China by Coca-Cola between 1978 and 1988,68 but by the development of popular music.


Children’s choirs singing ‘We love Beijing’s Tiananmen’ in the wake of the demonstrations of 1976 are a long way from the rock and roll groups of the late 1980s and 1990s. By 1990 Peking boasted ten groups, including ADO, 1989, Tang Dynasty, Breathing, COBRA and the Darling Brothers. Tang Dynasty are a heavy metal group, COBRA is an all women group, and 1989 are two overseas Chinese from the USA living in Peking.69 The categories of foreign visitors to China include cultural performers and those travelling to China for academic purposes. The number of foreign cultural performers each year has not increased greatly (at about 1,500) but they now come disproportionately from the developed countries of the world.70 The expansion of the tertiary sector of education in China since 1978 has attracted many foreign academics to China. Many have gone during the 1980s as foreign experts in their own areas of specialization to assist their Chinese counterparts, particularly in the development of what for the PRC were new departures. Others have gone for their own research. Indeed an interesting aspect of the events of May/June 1989 in Peking was the number of professional ‘China watchers’ who were on hand at the time. Starting in 1972/3, foreign students were able to study at Chinese universities. Of course, this form of openness had long existed in the otherwise relatively closed Soviet Union when thousands of students, mostly from the developing world, were brought to the Soviet Union for training. In the Chinese case, by 1978 some 700 students from Third World countries were engaged in full degree courses, and some 300 students from the developed world (mainly originally Chinese language students) were studying on a one-year course. A huge expansion came after 1978, largely as a result of the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the USA. American universities started sending their Chinese language students to China. There are now some 10,000 foreign students studying in China each year, with the overwhelming majority being language students from the USA or Japan. During the 1970s all foreign students were supervised by the Ministry of Education and were usually in China under the auspices of cultural exchanges. As a result of the reforms introduced during the 1980s, the increase in foreign students came almost totally as a result of the introduction of fee-paying schemes or the equivalent. The State Education Commission (it replaced the Ministry in 1986) has only rudimentary authority over many of these foreign students, and is without direct authority. For the most part the contracts entered into by host institutions in China do not require external approval, indeed the State Education Commission’s role seems limited to setting the minium fee level that can be charged. The movement of Chinese out of the country has not matched the numbers of foreign visitors, but is nonetheless significant, particularly when compared to the status quo ante and the position of other communist states. Before the late 1970s the only Chinese to travel abroad were those on official business, and a handful


of students able to study abroad under cultural exchanges. Even the prospect of a Chinese delegation attending an international academic conference was rare. Since 1978 the number of students going abroad has increased dramatically. Academics are for the most part positively encouraged to attend international conferences, even though there is often a language barrier. None of the Chinese delegation to the International Political Science Association’s Conference in Rio in 1981, for example, spoke any foreign language at all, let alone either English or Portuguese: it would be fair to say that they were somewhat shell-shocked from the experience. In the wake of the PLA’s invasion of Tiananmen Square in June 1989 much has been made outside China of the egress of students. Surprisingly the numbers are relatively small. The State Education Commission estimates that some 60, 000 students were sent abroad with government sponsorship, and 18,000 without between 1978 and 1989.71 The second figure is undoubtedly a political underestimate, but still cannot be very high. In the second half of 1989 when panic measures were at their height, it is estimated that an unplanned 5,000 Chinese students went to the USA. As a divided country which remained ambiguous about its cultural roots, East Germany seemed more concerned with the cultural sphere than any other communist state. When the regime was feeling confident, there was a desire to increase contacts with the West Germans. The 1980s saw an increase in the number of officially organized educational, school and sports exchanges. On 13 September 1983, for example, the FRG Minister for Inter-German Relations, Heinrich Windelen, reported that in 1982, 196 school classes with 5,019 participants had, with public money, visited the GDR. This compared with only 37 classes and 834 participants in 1979. Similarly, in 1982 the Ministry for InterGerman Relations reported that there were 41 East-West German sports meetings in the GDR and 37 in the FRG in that year, compared to 7 and 10 respectively in 1972.72 However, a more interesting development in the GDR took place at the end of the 1970s and early 1980s in the sphere of historiography. As with other branches of academic learning in the humanities and social sciences, the study of history was seen as a politically sensitive area. It had implications for the GDR’s self-identity, which in turn affected its foreign policy. The SED had in the 1950s and 1960s portrayed the East German state as the embodiment of the ‘progressive’ traditions of German history. This led to a simple dichotomy between ‘progressive’ and ‘reactionary’ traditions, in which Thomas Müntzer, August Bebel, Karl Liebknecht and Ernest Thälmann were the ‘good’ guys, and Martin Luther, Frederick the Second, Bismarck and Hitler were lumped together in the ‘reactionary’ tradition. This manichean view of German history reinforced the policy of Abgrenzung, which was the SED’s response to the dangers of détente in the 1970s. It also


provided an integral component of the supporting notion of the emergence of a separate East German ‘socialist nation’, based on a new social formation, proletarian internationalism and ‘progressive’ cultural and historical traditions. However, this simple black-and-white reading of history, and the heavy emphasis on the separateness of the GDR from the FRG evoked very little popular resonance in the GDR, and from about 1976 onwards, a new approach was developed. In the late 1970s, an attempt was made to broaden the historical and cultural basis of the East German state, and to develop a new awareness of a distinctive East German history. This meant that the ‘early roots of progressive traditions’ were now located as far back as the successful opposition of the German tribes to the Roman Empire. Territorially, they now stretched far beyond the borders of the current GDR, to include, for example, the founding of the Mainz republic in 1793.73 But the most striking historical innovations in the 1980s concerned Martin Luther and Prussian absolutism. Luther had previously been portrayed as a lackey of the princes and scourge of the rebellious peasants, in contrast to the more ‘progressive’ Thomas Müntzer. However, in the 1980s a major reassessment of Luther took place in the GDR, and he was subsequently heralded as ‘a progressive agent in the process of the early bourgeois revolution’ whose achievements ‘enabled bourgeois politics to break away from feudalism’.74 This was significant for both internal and external reasons. Firstly, Luther’s activities were centred on Saxony, in what was then the GDR. His rehabilitation could therefore be used to reinforce a sense of regional identity in the GDR. Second, the rehabilitation of Luther allowed the GDR to establish a new set of ties with the influential Protestant Church in the GDR. The SED at this time was concerned to win the Church to its positions on the ‘Euromissile’ question and to gain its support for the state-sponsored peace campaign. By encouraging the Church in its celebrations of the 500th centenary of Luther’s birth in 1983, the SED hoped to improve its relations with the Protestant authorities. Finally, the 1983 Luther celebrations were an important means by which the GDR could project a more positive and attractive image abroad, at a time of intensified East-West conflict.75 This reassessment of the historical roots of the GDR in the 1980s was yet another attempt by the SED to address what was a major problem for GDR communists: the lack of national legitimacy of the East German state. By expanding the historical and cultural basis of the GDR in this way, the SED hoped to stabilize the internal political situation. The GDR could thus expand its room for manoeuvre in foreign policy as well—particularly in its relations with the FRG and the West European countries. From the mid-1980s, as the winds of glasnost’ in the Soviet Union began sweeping the ‘socialist community’, a partial cultural liberalization took place in the GDR. This was not as dramatic or public as that which was occurring in the


USSR and Hungary, but it was nevertheless significant. One sign of this partial liberalization was that the cultural and intellectual heritage of the East German state was extended following broad-ranging discussions about philosophers like Ernst Bloch and Nietzsche, writers like Kafka, and artistic movements like Expressionism. At the same time, a sense of regional identity was encouraged by a rediscovery of, and re-emphasis on, local history.76 The Jewish contribution to German history, culture and society was also highlighted by the opening of a Jewish cultural centre in a renovated synagogue in Berlin.77 Furthermore, one of the many ‘taboo’ subjects in GDR history was removed following the public rehabilitation of Walter Ulbricht, and, conversely, of his Politburo opponent, Rudolf Herrnstadt. The significance of this assertion of the GDR’s German identity and character for Soviet-GDR relations was that it reinforced the SED’s claim that its policies could only be derived from the specific national peculiarities of the GDR, and not by imitating the Gorbachev reforms in the Soviet Union.78 Although there were some further signs of cultural liberalization and legal reforms, there were also an increasing number of disturbing indications that a conservative backlash was gathering strength within the SED Politburo and Secretariat by 1987. It became apparent that the SED was increasingly concerned about some of the cultural and ideological tendencies emerging from the Soviet Union as a result of the policy of glasnost’. The East German press began to carry some articles critical of Soviet cultural developments, including strong criticism of the film Repentance by the Georgian director, Tengiz Abuladze,79 and of some of the works by the controversial playwright, Mikhail Shatrov— particularly his play, Onward…Onward…Onward.80 However, it was the banning of the Soviet monthly press digest Sputnik (announced in Neues Deutschland on 19 November 1988) that constituted the most dramatic evidence of the SED’s unease with the Soviet policy of glasnost’. The grounds given for the ban were that the journal no longer ‘makes a contribution to the consolidation of German-Soviet friendship. Instead it is providing distorted depictions of history’.81 Two days later, Neues Deutschland announced that five Soviet films (which also dealt in a controversial way with Stalinism) were also to be banned from GDR cinemas. Both of these actions caused a major outcry in the GDR, and led to angry exchanges in many SED meetings of the Party rank-and-file. What particularly offended the East German authorities, it seems, was the suggestion that some of Stalin’s politics actually contributed to the successes of Hitler in the 1930s. Whatever the relative merits of these disputes, the SED’s policy of banning Soviet journals and films indicated a deeper unease over the direction and content of the Soviet reform process. It also suggested that the SED was no longer applying the policy of Abgrenzung simply to the ‘capitalist West’.


With this action the SED leadership slipped further into a bunker mentality in an age of perestroika and glasnost’. By the time the East Germans had second and third thoughts about their cultural reforms, another formerly divided communist state, Vietnam, was feeling its way to greater cultural openness. But as the Vietnamese began to look more closely at their natural cultural heritage, they, like the Chinese, became caught up in the complex process of meshing Marxism with Confucianism. Unlike the East European regimes, Vietnam did not look to alternative European models. Nevertheless, as greater freedom in Vietnam was extended to the arts in 1987, Western music and videos previously vigorously suppressed were now openly tolerated. For years Western pop music and culture had been decried by the authorities. Even ballroom dancing was banned, much to the resentment of many Vietnamese and particularly those in the south of the country. The ageing northern leadership seemed to be imbued not just with the Leninist concept of creating a ‘new socialist man’ but also the Confucian ethic of self-restraint. After 1987 the authorities showed a far greater tolerance towards Western culture in both its popular and elitist variants. One of the most important factors contributing to the more relaxed attitude by the authorities was the growing realization that most young Vietnamese were deeply disillusioned by the austere regime hitherto imposed by the Communist Party. It increasingly seemed to be counterproductive to repress Western culture. Soon rock music was heard as frequently on the streets of Vietnamese cities as in other parts of South-East Asia. ‘Video-cafes’ also became part of the scene in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Books by Western writers became more generally available and Vietnamese writers and film-makers gathered confidence and soon criticized the country’s social and economic problems. One early example of this was the novel, Time Gone By by the writer Nguyen Luu, which was published in 1987. The book examines the life of an ageing cadre looking back at an unsuccessful and unhappy life and its appearance caused controversy because of the writer’s willingness to blame society for an individual’s failures.82 Other writers such as Nguyen Huy Thiep openly attacked the backwardness and poverty of Vietnam and the country’s inability to free itself of its feudal past despite decades of communist rule. His open identification with the homeless and rigorous rejection of socialist realism were no obstacle to the publication of his work. Indeed his ability to do so became a test of the government’s commitment to openness and change.83 The journal of the writers’ association, Van Nghe rapidly became one of the most reformist organs in the country after 1987. Gradually even themes regarded hitherto as sacred, such as the position of the army in Vietnamese society, were addressed. The tendency to glorify the military and ignore the violence of the communist forces in the south was now rejected. In Xuan Trieu’s novel, Hue in the Red Season of Apricot Blossoms, the subject of the occupation of the city of


Hue in 1968 by communist forces is addressed and the killings of captured enemy soldiers and citizens openly admitted. Similar changes began to take place in cinema, theatre and art with a greater willingness to move away from the previous norms of socialist realism. Typical of the new mood was the film, Decent Story. Made in 1985, the film was shown in late 1987 on Hanoi television, apparently after an intervention by Nguyen Van Linh himself. The film graphically depicts homeless beggars on the streets of Hanoi and then switches to scenes of a lavish party. In Vietnam, as we have seen in other communist societies, a reexamination of the country’s past history has been an important part of the reform process. In February 1988, five surviving writers persecuted in 1957 following Vietnam’s Hundred Flowers Campaign were reinstated. The Humanist Literature Movement, which flourished at that time and criticized Communist Party excesses in land reform and nationalization, was reappraised in a more favourable light. Academic exchanges with the West, virtually unknown before 1987, also increased after the reform programme got under way. A conference on the Vietnam war brought together for the first time American and Vietnamese historians in Hanoi in December 1988.84 Another conference, funded by the American Social Science Research Council, took place in the city in June 1990. The US Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE) reached agreement in 1990 to offer a semester programme beginning in spring 1991 at the University of Hanoi. The programme was designed for American students with an interest in studying the language, history and culture of Vietnam.85 The poor state of higher education was a particular problem. Vietnam’s shift to a more market-orientated economy exposed the complete absence of courses in such subjects as modern economics, marketing and computer science. Concern that the country might not be producing enough students with the necessary skills to meet the challenge of development led the authorities in 1989 to allow the establishment of a private university in Hanoi. Thang Long (Dragon) University was set up on an experimental basis with eighteen professors and 120 students initially. Its main goal was to produce graduates who meet international standards of education and funding for the university came from overseas Vietnamese and a French Christian charity. Students are required to study two foreign languages and computer science in addition to their basic discipline. Other groups are also known to have applied to the authorities to establish private colleges.86 In sum, the five communist states analysed above all had some degree of openness to the outside world in cultural terms. And yet as one might expect from analysis of cultural issues, the type of openness was distinctive because national conditions differed. If one assumes that cultural policy is a crucial part of what we have been calling economic culture and even strategic culture, then it is


not surprising that we turn up a wide range of types of reform that have a great deal to do with local circumstances. In terms of cultural policy, the trend suggests both an opening to what can be called ‘narrowcasting’ issues of precommunist traditions, as well as to the ‘broadcasting’ of more global influences of Western or even Confucian traditions. But just as we have seen that the ‘Western’ capitalist states of East Asia have evolved a distinctive mix of narrow and broad cultural dimensions that make them distinctive from the states in the Atlantic world, so the East Asian communist states have developed distinctive adaptations of reform and openness. REFORM OF RELIGIOUS POLICY Communist states are supposed to have no religion and no problems with religious believers trusting a faith other than that defined by the Communist Party. However, it is clear that in all communist states there were significant communities of believers in religion and the ruling regime was regularly struggling to undermine their spirits and institutions. Although no two states under review had precisely the same religion, some did share common problems with how the ruling Communist Party might deal with dissent. In all cases, religious belief also meant identification with both an authority and fellowbelievers outside the state, and thus reform of religious policy also meant a change in relations with the outside world. The Soviet Union had the biggest problem with religion, and it was not surprising that as reforms gained speed, they affected the religious dimension in due course. On 26 September 1990 the USSR Supreme Soviet approved in principle a draft law on freedom of conscience. The central features of the bill— the guarantee of freedom of religion and the separation of religion from the state —in fact merely reaffirmed the existing legislative and constitutional situation. Whereas from the time of Lenin the state had conducted a campaign against religion, in violation of the law, from 1988 the leadership showed a much more positive attitude to religion in general and Russian Orthodoxy in particular. Gorbachev’s meeting with Patriarch Pimen in April 1988 and the publicity given to the millennium of the baptism of Rus’ in that year marked the beginning of an expansion of the role of the Church in Russian society. Between 1985 and 1990, 5,500 religious buildings were opened or returned to religious organizations, of which 4,100 went to the Russian Orthodox Church (increasing their number of churches by over half). The number of registered religious associations significantly increased (especially among the Muslims, where previously unregistered groups came into the open).87 In order to overcome the chronic shortage of religious literature, the authorities have allowed the churches to import Bibles on a large scale. Between January 1988 and July 1989, 954,500 Bibles and 1,510,000 New Testaments were imported, being donations


from foreign Christians and churches.88 The new bill allowed Sunday schools to be established and for religious services to be held in the armed forces. The main area of dispute was the legality of religious education in state schools. Up to 1988, the churches played a defined role in Soviet foreign policy. Within the World Council of Churches and other religious fora the hierarchy, bishops and muftis promoted the ‘peace-loving’ nature of Soviet foreign policy, and usually systematically lied about the existence of the persecution of believers in the USSR. The KGB controlled all top-level appointments in the Russian Orthodox Church, through the Council for Religious Affairs. In April 1988, however, Gorbachev went some way towards admitting to religious persecution in the Soviet period, and appealed for believers to join the struggle for perestroika. It seems that he saw the faithful as a positive moral force, able to counter the corruption and cynicism of the Party and state apparatchiki. The churches were invited to provide charitable acts of social work, filling the gaps left by the state, even though any activities by the churches outside worship were still formally illegal. Representatives of foreign churches at the millennium of Russian Christianity attending the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church heard the hierarchy denounced by rank-and-file priests for collaborating with the atheist state in the period of persecutions.89 Against the wishes of the hierarchy, many buildings in the Western Ukraine were taken from the Orthodox Church and returned to the Ukrainian Catholic (Uniate) Church, which was forcibly merged with the Moscow Patriarchate in 1946. This went towards the demands of what had, under glasnost’ become a mass movement among Ukrainians, and achieved support from Pope John-Paul II and President Reagan. The Pope played a mediating but supporting role in the Lithuanian struggle for independence in 1990. Overseas support also helped the renewal of Soviet Islam. Foreign press publicity for the February 1989 demonstration in Tashkent against the ‘Brezhnevist’ Grand Mufti of Central Asia and Kazakhstan assisted in his replacement by a younger, more dynamic and popular figure.90 Early in 1990, Mohammed Saliq Mamaiusupov, the new Grand Mufti, toured the Middle East in a successful quest for help for Soviet Islam from Arab countries. King Fahd of Saudi Arabia gave him one million copies of the Koran. This visit was followed in September by the restoration of diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the Kingdom. In 1990 1,000 Soviet Muslims made the hajj to Mecca— formerly restricted to a handful of official religious leaders—and the resumption of diplomatic relations laid the basis for a possible expansion in the numbers able to perform this holy duty.91 Clearly the importance of reform of religious policy affected the Soviet Union both in terms of the reactions of the outside world to its handling of Christian issues, but also in the way in which contacts were established and changed with


the Islamic world. There were some similarities in China, most notably on the matter of Islamic minorities. But the most obvious difference was that China had nothing that could be properly called a religion that was subscribed to by a large section of the population. Indeed, the ability of the Chinese people to adhere to both Daoist and Confucian principles at the same time suggested the depths of their natural pragmatism. Perhaps because of the less powerfully religious base of the Chinese people, it was less difficult for the Chinese to be tolerant of religion, at least up to a certain point. The Islamic people of China, notably the Huis and the Uighurs, have not only been able to practise their religion openly again within the boundaries of China, since 1984 they have also been permitted to go on hajj to Mecca. This was a remarkable degree of political tolerance given that diplomatic relations did not exist during the 1980s between the PRC and Saudi Arabia. During the 1950s the CCP’s struggle with the Christian Churches, and particularly the Roman Catholic, was presented as having a nationalist base. Domestic churches were established with Chinese leadership sanctioned by the CCP. Driven underground during the Cultural Revolution, by the end of 1987 there were more than 4 million Christians in China. They are concentrated in the south-eastern provinces and Shanxi (an area of strong nineteenth-century missionary influence) with most in Wenzhou, a city which has more than 320, 000 Christians and which has also been at the forefront of light industrial modernization. According to one report something like 1,000 new churches were constructed during the 1980s. However, it is clear that fundamentalist Christian sects were still regarded with considerable suspicion by the CCP. ‘Self-appointed preachers’ have been a particular target, on the grounds that they are not only unregulated but also frequently abuse their position. Another target has been the activities of the ‘Callers’, who are identified as inciting riots against ‘socialism, the CCP and the patriotic christian movement’ through collusion with foreign subversive religious groups.92 Perhaps not surprisingly in a country where there were very distinct limits to political reform, there were strict limits to the toleration of religious rivals for popular support. Although China remained at the more closed end of the spectrum on religious policy, it is fair to say that no reforming communist state has found it easy to open religious policy. The Catholic Church in Hungary had never posed problems for the regime on the scale of Poland, at least, not since the Kadar regime came to an agreement with the United States over the fate of Cardinal Mindszenty who had taken refuge in the US Embassy in 1956. After he was allowed to emigrate, the Kadar regime adopted a more conciliatory line, which was welcomed by the Church. The Church in turn took care to keep the priests in line. In any case, the political-cultural significance of the Church was far less than in Poland. To some extent, Catholicism was discredited by its association with extremely reactionary


and authoritarian tendencies of inter-war politics. Moreover, it did not enjoy the virtual monopoly over believers as held by the Polish Catholic Church: about one-third of the country has always been more under the sway of Calvinism. Levels of active participation in religious observance are similar to those in most secularizing West European societies. However, external influences changed this picture by the early 1980s. Naturally, the Polish example kindled the interest of part of the younger generation in religion, and opposition intellectuals began to see the Church as a possible force for change. Within the Church itself, signs of conflict between the priests and the hierarchy appeared, connected with disagreements about the extent to which the Church should subordinate itself to the regime. Moreover, ‘basic communities’ began to appear, comprising groups of believers who worshipped in their own homes, thus evading the controls exercised by the Church hierarchy.93 A catalytic issue in this context was the question of the right to be released from military service on the grounds of conscientious objection, which came onto the agenda at the same time as the Soviet bloc launched its ‘peace offensive’ against the siting of Cruise missiles in Europe. The campaign backfired amongst young people by stimulating widespread pacifism, to which the Kadar regime found it difficult to respond except by calling for reinvigoration of the youth movement,94 or imprisonment of the most intransigent draft resisters.95 In 1981, Cardinal Lekai, the strongly pro-government head of the Catholic Church in Hungary, suspended two priests for advocating conscientious objection. But after doing this ‘dirty work’ for the regime, some voices in the Church began to show signs of increased assertiveness. Mgr Jozsef Cserhati, Bishop of Pecs, wrote an article in the Catholic official weekly in which he suggested that after a long period of helping the regime, the Church should now be rewarded with more latitude in carrying out pastoral work. This was backed by the Vatican, which, while raising no objections to the Hungarian Church’s treatment of Father Bulanyi, nevertheless appeared to be urging it to be more assertive and active in religious education.96 Of even greater importance was the role played by the churches in the cultural life of the GDR. As the only institutions able to offer an alternative to MarxismLeninism and the dominant values of the ruling SED, they were of considerable interest to many GDR citizens, especially young people. The fact that they offered an alternative way of looking at the problem of peace was particularly important in the early 1980s, when concerns of war and peace were heightened by the ‘Euromissile’ deployments and renewed Cold War tensions. Aware of the potential power and influence of the Church, the SED had moved to improved Church-state relations in 1978, at the much publicized meeting between Erich Honecker and the representatives of the Protestant Bund


der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR. One result was that the time allocated to the Churches on state radio and television was increased. In the 1980s, the SED authorities tried to keep good relations with the Churches for a number of reasons. First, the Churches provided a valuable umbrella for groups critical of SED policy—such as the unofficial peace movement and ecological groups. By maintaining good working relations with the Church hierarchy, the party hoped that the Church authorities would exercise a restraining hand on such dissident groups. Second, the SED hoped to find an ally for its international ‘peace’ campaign. Third, in another manifestation of the SED’s aspiration for Annäherung with the socialist East, the party hoped to encourage the Churches to develop official contacts with their co-religionists in the socialist community. The East German authorities realized that the contacts of the GDR churches with churches in the West were often financially rewarding. Much of the money for the building of new churches in East German towns and cities in the 1980s came from the West-which represented a much welcomed input of hard currency into the hard-pressed GDR economy. Moreover, money from the West also helped pay for the eighty-nine religious hospitals in the GDR —thirty-four of them Catholic.97 Differences between Church and state continued throughout the 1980s on a number of key issues. First, on the question of military education in schools, which the churches strongly opposed. Second, on the question of war and peace: the churches criticized the arms race and militarism in both East and West, whereas the SED attributed the blame for the new Cold War simply to Western imperialism. Finally, there were differences over the role of the Church in GDR society, and the extent to which the Church should offer a protected social space to groups who were critical of East German socialism and yet not motivated primarily by religious conviction. Nevertheless, the role of the Church in facilitating and sustaining a more open debate in the GDR should not be underestimated. For example, at a church festival in Dresden in July 1983, ‘over half a million persons attended workshops and cultural events, prayed and heard sermons, and took part in discussions—all this in a gathering organized and supervised by church authorities, without prior censorship of leaflets, and with candid discussion of complaints against the civil authorities’.98 In stark contrast to the GDR, but not quite in the Chinese mould of relatively little role for religion, the post-1986 reform movement in Vietnam also had its impact on religion. This was most noticeable in the more relaxed official attitude toward the Catholic Church. Unlike North Korea or China, the Catholic Church has never been banned in Vietnam although it has found its activities subject to many constraints. After the Communist Party’s Sixth Congress in December 1986, Vietnam’s 4 million Roman Catholics began to enjoy far greater official tolerance. In May 1987 the Party leader, Nguyen Van Linh held an unprecedented meeting with the country’s Catholic bishops in Hanoi, where he


assured them of the Communist Party’s ‘unswerving policy of respect for freedom of religion’. Linh went on to acknowledge that there had been shortcomings and errors in the past by many cadres towards the Catholic Church. In October 1987 two bishops, the auxiliary Bishop of Hanoi, Nguyen Van Sang and the Bishop of Xuan Loc, Nguyen Minh Nhat, were allowed to attend a synod of Catholic bishops in Rome for the first time in many years. In a report to the 200 bishops gathered at the Vatican, they said that the authorities had recently allowed the opening of two new seminaries and the ordination of new priests. At the same time they gave an indication of the difficulties still faced by Vietnamese Catholics, especially in the provinces, where they frequently had to travel as far as 70 kilometres to hear mass. A more tolerant attitude towards other religious groups such as the small Protestant Churches and the Buddhists was also notable after 1986. But it was above all the Catholic Church that benefited most from the more liberal attitude towards religion. This was a reflection both of the size of the Catholic minority but also the international dimensions of the Roman Catholic Church. A signal of the better relations that soon prevailed between the Vatican and Vietnam was the despatch to Hanoi in June 1989 of a special papal envoy, Cardinal Etchegaray. He was the first Vatican representative to visit communist Vietnam since 1954. During a two week visit he met not only with leaders of the Vietnamese Catholic community but also with the prime minister, Do Muoi. In the run up to Cardinal Etchegary’s visit a number of Catholic priests who had been chaplains in the former South Vietnamese army were released from re-education camps. The Vatican envoy carried with him a special message from Pope John-Paul II, which is believed to have expressed the desire for a papal visit to Vietnam. Thus with its significant connection to the Catholic world, Vietnam showed perhaps more features of openness to an originally European religion than it did in many other aspects of reform. In the end, apart from China, all of the reforming communist states chose to take the risks that came from opening up religious policy, although some, such as the GDR, did so in the belief that they could control the process. TOURISM AND EMIGRATION Few areas of openness have attracted as much attention as the right to leave one’s country. But as the right to travel has been more easily granted, concern has grown in neighbouring countries that too many people might also seek the right of entry for more than tourism or business. Thus the politics of travel and emigration have raised some of the most sensitive issues in the reform of foreign policy in communist states. The long-promised law on entry into and exit from the USSR was finally approved in May 1991, although the right to travel was to be withheld until


1993. It was estimated that it would cost some $20 billion to expand customs and passport services as well as transportation and border patrols.99 Nevertheless the major obstacles to tourism and emigration, for the bulk of the population, were in practice lifted around the beginning of 1988. In the past, foreign tourism was a privilege reserved to the few. Those seeking to visit the West had to obtain permission from their place of work and the raikom (district Party committee) and obtain a foreign passport and exit and re-entry visas. By 1991 they needed only the passport and visas and permission from the KGB-linked personnel section at their place of work, and the process is much simpler. Similarly, Western tourists in the USSR are finding that previously closed areas are opening up. The number of Soviet tourists travelling abroad in 1989–8 million—exceeded for the first time the number of foreigners who visited the USSR—7.75 million.100 However, of the 8 million outbound Soviet citizens in 1989, some 5.6 million went to socialist states—70 per cent of the total compared to 63 per cent in 1988. Of the foreign visitors in 1989, 5.5 million came from socialist states— 71 per cent of the total compared to 50 per cent in 1988. Some two-thirds of the Western visitors were tourists in these years.101 The main obstacle for Soviet would-be-tourists was financial: the new tourist rate of exchange, valuing the rouble at one tenth of its previous rate, made tourism very expensive. In November 1990 it was reported that the Soviet railway administration was going to insist that payment for travel to destinations outside the USSR be made only in hard currency. If this had been implemented, it would have made travel much harder for Soviet citizens. Commenting on the report, Izvestia suggested that the decision amounted to a ‘violation of human rights in our country’.102 Such a policy would clearly have been counter to the spirit of the Helsinki Final Act, since it would have impeded freedom of movement. Emigration has soared. In 1979—the previous record year—51,000 Jews provided the great bulk of the emigrants. After that, numbers fell in 1980 and thereafter emigration was virtually prevented. In 1988 figures rose again: 47,000 Germans and 19,000 Jews were allowed to leave. In the first nine months of 1989, 118,619 Soviet citizens applied to emigrate and only 493 were refused.103 In 1989 as a whole 235,000 emigrated, including 105,000 Germans and 70,000 Jews.104 In the first ten months of 1990, 122,000 Soviet Jews arrived in Israel. Total Soviet emigration in 1990 was nearly half a million, compared to 235,000 in 1989. It is clear that the old excuses used to stop emigration (the person had been employed in a militarily-sensitive post, or the parents refused to give consent) were abandoned in all but a small minority of cases. The principal obstacle to emigration had become the reluctance of other countries to receive Soviet citizens. Israel (but no longer the USA) welcomed Jews, Germany accepted Germans, Greeks could go to Greece and Armenians could find shelter in the diaspora, but the prospects for most other nationalities were limited.


Reforms in the movement of people in China are hardly less spectacular, but most of the flow of people has been into China while outflows have only become somewhat easier. Of course, given the size of the Chinese population, and the already vast overseas Chinese communities, few countries would really wish to see free emigration from China. China has only strictly limited foreign travel. Before the 1970s the expansion in numbers of Chinese going abroad and foreigners visiting the country was limited more by lack of appropriate infrastructures. In the early 1970s China’s foreign policy began to open up. An essential part of this process initially was the invitation to China of ‘delegations’ of one kind or another hosted by specific organizations. This process of cultural diplomacy started with the famous (or notorious) examples of the US table tennis team attending the world championships in Japan and the delegation from the US Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars, and was an essential part of the PRC’s overtures for a New World Order. Until 1978 no differentiation was made between tourists and official visitors, and indeed, tourism was only acceptable in a domestic political context as part of, essentially, foreign policy. The emergence of a de-politicized tourist industry was a major reform in the late 1970s. Even before the Cultural Revolution tourism had not been great. At its pre-Cultural Revolution height in 1965 there had only been 4,500 tourists to China. Between 1978 and 1980 tourism increased to first 230,000 foreign tourists and some one and a half million residents of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau (PRC figures differentiate between foreign visitors, those of Chinese descent, and those from non-PRC China); and then 529,000 foreign visitors and over 5 million residents of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau.106 During the 1980s tourism grew at an average of 116.3 per cent per year. In 1988 there were some 30 million visitors to China: just over 4 million foreign tourists, and over 25 million residents of Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. By 1988 tourism had become a multi-million dollar industry, worth US$ 2.2 billion in foreign exchange alone.107 The increase in the number of tourists led to a necessary expansion of the infrastructure of the tourism industry. Hotels are the obvious case in point. Peking now has just short of 200 international standard ‘luxury’ hotels, where during the late 1970s it had none. A new airport has opened in Peking to cope with the increased traffic. CAAC (Civil Aviation Administration of China) and CITS (China International Travel Service) have both been completely overhauled organizationally several times.108 However, the qualitative changes in tourism are probably more important than its growth. During the late 1970s tourists were only able to travel freely within China to an extremely limited number of places. With the increase in tourism this rapidly increased by 1980 to a list of some 220 cities and counties ‘open’ to visitors, but for everywhere else it was still necessary to obtain an internal passport and the appropriate visas.109 Further reforms during the 1980s removed


internal passports and increased the number of ‘open’ areas to such an extent that controls have clearly been relaxed completely in all but the most militarily sensitive areas, even those where technically prior permission is still required, and even though it remains difficult to obtain train or plane tickets. The loosening of control—both formal, such as the need to obtain visas, and informal (particularly attitudes towards foreigners)—has meant that tourists to China need not be part of organized groups. Individual travellers, though still not encouraged, are tolerated. Hitch-hiking has even become possible, though a spate of foreign fatalities in Qinghai and Tibet has led to a suspicious attitude on the part of the public security forces. China’s notions of tourism and foreign visitors embrace those who come to work or to live short-term, or on cultural visits. Since 1978 these categories of foreign visitors have also increased in number, and the range of activities they have come to China for has also grown. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s—with the exception of the Cultural Revolution—there were always a number of foreign experts working in China. Indeed, in Peking, the Friendship Hotel was originally built for their support. Many identified either with China or with the revolutionary cause—their presence was certainly regarded by the PRC as a political act—and they were paid minimal wages by international standards. For the most part these foreign experts were engaged in language teaching or associated activities where native speaker competence in foreign languages was required. Of necessity, all these foreign experts were employed in state enterprises. With the reforms of the 1980s all this has changed. In 1988 there were some 45,000 foreign experts in China. Most were employed on specific contracts and recruited for their expertise in their home countries. In addition to language experts they now include economists, scientists, engineers and management experts, and they work at the front-line of production as well as in training programmes for Chinese. Even though many withdrew from China during the disturbances in June 1989, the number seems to have settled at about 30,000.110 In a similar vein, the number of foreign businesses operating in China had also increased out of all proportion to the level of activity during the 1970s. Figures are not available for the whole country. However, in 1989 there were 1,277 foreign firms with registered offices in Peking alone. Undoubtedly this expansion explains such projects as the recently opened World Trade Centre, which provides offices and support services, as well as hotels and a convention centre in the centre of Peking. All this is a far cry from 1979 when it was virtually impossible to stay at the Beijing Hotel because all the rooms had been booked by foreign businesses as offices due to the acute shortage of office space. In comparison, since 1978 China has sent over 450,000 of what are rather loosely described as ‘aid workers’ or experts abroad to work on overseas projects.111 Some of those were undoubtedly aid workers as part of China’s


attempts to gain the confidence of Third World countries. However, one clear result of the reform era is that China has also been prepared to establish offshore companies and to export its labour. By the end of 1987, China had seventy-four international companies running 5,400 project and labour service contracts in 115 countries, worth US$8.27 billion. Shanghai alone ran fifty-eight overseas enterprises in twenty-six different countries at the end of 1989.112 Despite the introduction of a law on entry to and exit from the PRC on 1 February 1986, the opportunities for most Chinese to travel outside the country are limited. In 1990, 290,235 Chinese applied to go abroad for personal reasons, a rise of 16.7 per cent over 1989. Over 96 per cent of the applications were approved and 175,700 people left China after obtaining relevant visas. In the same year, 446,574 Chinese citizens went to Hong Kong and Macao for private business and 5,690 went to Taiwan. From 1979 to 1990 over 1.55 million Chinese applied to go abroad and 1.34 million of the applications were approved. Over 700,000 people obtained visas from relevant countries and left China.113 The regulations for obtaining passports and exit visas and travel tickets have eased considerably, especially since the new regulations in 1986. By 1990 it was no longer necessary to show a passport before purchasing a ticket, and exit visas can now be issued in travel centres and not simply by the Public Security Bureaux.114 In March 1991 the Chinese lifted the requirement for a visa for group travel to the Soviet Union and thus the Soviet Union became the first officially approved international tourist destination for Chinese (apart from Hong Kong—which is not foreign).115 A curious channel of access for Chinese wishing to see more of the world is marriage. Until the reform era the incidence of marriage between foreigners and Chinese was still rather low, and most definitely discouraged, both politically and morally. Pressures are still brought to bear to discourage such relationships, but nonetheless a few thousand occur each year. Figures are not available for the whole country, but during the mid-1980s in Shanghai alone about a thousand Chinese a year were marrying foreigners. Interestingly 90 per cent of the brides were Chinese.116 When turning to the smaller reforming communist states, the most obvious difference is the fact that because the populations are smaller (except in the Vietnamese case), the regimes have been more anxious about large numbers leaving. But even in this category there are important differences. Hungary introduced a minor reform of the passport system, with effect from January 1984. This reduced the number of passports—a private individual wishing to travel no longer had to apply for separate passports for socialist and non-socialist countries. The passport was held permanently in the possession of the individual, but this did not give the automatic right to use it. An exit permit still had to be obtained from the local police, which required elaborate permission documents from one’s employer. Individuals were only allowed to apply to travel to the


West every three years: this was justified on the grounds of shortage of hard currency. Individual travellers were rationed per diem to the amount of hard currency they could buy. In practice, this was inadequate, and it was tacitly assumed that the traveller would make use of the black market in order to obtain adequate currency. All of this created an atmosphere of uncertainty, humiliating dependency on the authorities, and risk of being discovered with unauthorized currency. A further departure was the granting of permission for Hungarian citizens to take jobs abroad, following the Yugoslav pattern. Paradoxically, travel to the socialist motherland of the USSR was even more difficult and expensive for East Europeans than travel to the West. Travel by private individuals for tourism was not permitted—only strictly organized groups were allowed. The cost of such package tours was extremely high for Hungarians as there was a state monopoly of travel agencies. From 1 January 1988 a new passport law gave Hungarians the right to travel to the West whenever they chose, provided they had evidence that they held hard currency to the value of Ft3,000 ($65). Hungarians were given the right to hold hard currency, with no questions asked about the source of that currency, for the first three months of the new regulations; $100,000 was deposited in such new accounts in the first few days of 1988. Tourism was a sizable hard currency earning industry even in the 1970s. The proximity of the country to Austria and the availability of a wide range of cheap and fairly attractive goods (handicrafts, wine and salami, restaurants) attracted significant numbers. Convertible currency tourism earnings grew from Ft1,982 million in 1975 to Ft4,040 million in 1980 to Ft34,363 million in 1988. The numbers of visitors from Western Europe (including Yugoslavia) rose from 3, 645,000 in 1981 to 4,649,000 in 1985. In 1988, the number reached 8,089,000. However, an increasing problem was encountered in tourism from neighbouring CMEA countries, most of which was not motivated by elevated cultural curiosity but by the search for consumer goods and food. The spending of tourists from the rouble area in Hungary went up from Ft6,210 million in 1980 to Ft11,180 in 1985 reaching 12,878 million in 1987, at which point the Hungarian government introduced restrictive measures, limiting the availability of forints for purchase by East European visitors and imposing export bans on many items. In 1988 and 1989, further problems arose as a result of the liberalization of the travel laws applied to Hungarian citizens: Hungarians travelled in vast numbers to Austria to buy goods, especially consumer durables. The exodus of hard currency from the country dealt a severe blow to the economy: the convertible currency tourism balance fell from Ft17,426 million in 1987 to Ft1,905 million in 1988 as spending of hard currency by Hungarians abroad shot up from Ft8,737 million in 1987 to Ft32,458 million in 1988. However, none of these problems were as significant as those facing the GDR. One of the principal causes of discontent in the GDR was the immense


difficulties placed in the way of emigration and travel to the West. In the 1950s, East Germany’s open border with the West led to a steady haemorrhage of its citizens—especially the young, skilled and enterprising. In order to prevent the economic and social disintegration of the GDR, the SED—in cooperation with the Soviet Union—built a wall between the two German states. This succeeded in stabilizing the internal structures of the GDR, but at the cost of considerable resentment and unrest. Between August 1961 (when the Wall was erected) and 1983, it is estimated that over 38,000 risked death, maiming or imprisonment in order to leave the GDR.117 The pressures on the GDR to ease their restrictions on emigration mounted in the early 1970s as a result of East Germany’s entry into the United Nations in 1973 and its signature of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975. This encouraged a growing number of citizens to apply to leave their ‘socialist homeland’, either individually, or in some isolated cases, collectively. By the end of 1983, it was estimated that between 200,000 and 500,000 exit applications had been made to the East German authorities.118 In the early 1980s, emigration was permitted at levels running between 15,000 and 18,000 per annum. In the spring of 1984, however, this figure jumped to 31, 194 in the first half of the year, rising to 42,316 by the end of December. In 1985, 18,000 were allowed to leave, and a further 23,752 between January and midNovember 1986. The reasons for this surge in emigration were twofold: on the one hand, the SED hoped to be able to diffuse the internal political pressures in the country. It is significant, for example, that amongst those allowed to leave were a high number of independent peace activists, and others involved in ‘counter-cultural activities’ which were regarded with suspicion by the authorities. On the other hand, it is suggested that the leap in emigration was the result of a secret agreement between the East and West German governments, according to which the GDR would allow a higher rate of emigration in exchange for an undisclosed sum of money.119 With the establishment of formal relations between the two German states in the early 1970s, opportunities were expanded for old age pensioners and those with ‘urgent family business’ to visit relatives in the West. In the mid-1980s, however, there was a noticeable increase in the numbers allowed to travel to the West. In 1986, over 1.5 million retired people and 573,000 on ‘urgent family business’ were allowed to visit the FRG. According to Honecker, only 0.2 per cent of those visitors opted to stay in the West.120 In 1987, over one million GDR citizens visited the West: this represented a tenfold increase in just three years.121 For many years, the GDR authorities had argued that more widespread travel to the West was prevented by two main factors: the West Germans’ nonrecognition of East German citizenship, and the lack of hard currency. The increase in foreign travel in the mid-1980s was motivated by two key factors: first, an attempt to defuse popular discontent within East Germany itself; and


second, to improve the image of the GDR in West Germany, as part of the attempt to boost the chances for a successful visit by Erich Honecker to the FRG in 1987. If East Germany and its most potent symbol of the Cold War—the Berlin Wall —was the most sensitive case of emigration policy in Europe, Vietnam must take the honours in East Asia. As a result of civil war, persecution of ethnic Chinese and economic problems with reform, 1.5 million Vietnamese have fled their country since 1975 and therefore Vietnam developed a special attitude to the issue of migration and travel. Most Vietnamese refugees have been resettled in the United States, Canada, Australia and France. For the most part these people left Vietnam illegally, becoming known to the world as the ‘boat-people’. After the Geneva conference of 1979 on Indochinese refugees a substantial minority have left legally under the so-called Orderly Departures Programme (ODP). This is directly administered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Vietnamese leaving on the programme do so by air from Ho Chi Minh City. The post-1986 reforms have had little impact on the numbers of Vietnamese leaving illegally by boat. Indeed numbers showed a tendency to increase in 1988– 9, reflecting the country’s dire economic predicament. The reforms did have an impact, however, on ODP departures. From 1987 onwards the authorities were more tolerant of Vietnamese wishing to join relatives overseas. Monthly departures went up to 2,000 or more, with the annual average since 1987 being 25,000. The authorities also encouraged overseas Vietnamese to send money home. In 1986 it was estimated that $300 million was sent home by overseas Vietnamese and that a quarter of the population of Ho Chi Minh City were living off remittances.122 In a more cautious manner, the Vietnamese authorities also began to allow Vietnamese settled overseas to return to the country for visits from 1987. Vietnamese in France and Australia in particular took advantage of this opportunity to return to visit relatives in their homeland. In February 1988 the authorities also liberalized travel restrictions for Vietnamese wishing to go abroad for educational purposes or to visit relatives. The state was also involed in the temporary export of Vietnamese on labour contracts, mostly to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. But even though by 1986 there were some 250,000 Vietnamese working in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, following the revolutions of 1989 and reforms in the Soviet Union, most Vietnamese have been returned home. This aspect of ‘closure’ was due to the reforms (but not the openness) of former communist states. From 1987 there was also an increase in the number of foreign businessmen visiting Vietnam. Most came from Thailand, South Korea, Hong Kong and Australia. In the first six months of 1987 some 500 foreign businessmen visited Vietnam, compared with 700 in the whole of 1986. Despite the country’s woefully inadequate infrastructure, efforts were also made to boost tourism. In


1986 some 20,000 foreign tourists visited Vietnam. The following year this figure had risen to 30,000, half of them overseas Vietnamese. In 1989 the number of foreign tourists reached 70,000. By 1990 there were plans for 100,000 tourists and 3,000 new hotel beds were planned for Hanoi. The city’s ‘Tong Nhat’ Hotel, formerly the Hotel Metropole, was renovated with the cooperation of the French Pullman Company, and in Ho Chi Minh City, the Cuu Long Hotel, formerly the Majestic, was refurbished by the Indonesian company, P.T.Summa.123 The Saigon Tourist Company had, by early 1990, signed more than sixty contracts with companies from Japan, France, the United States, Australia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Malaysia. The increase in foreign businessmen and tourists visiting Vietnam also led to a modest improvement in air links with the country. Before 1987 Thai Airways and Air France, which had a weekly flight into Ho Chi Minh City, were the only non-communist airlines serving Vietnam. By 1990 Philippine Airlines, MAS, Garuda and Lufthansa had all set up flights to Vietnam. As one of the poorest countries in the world, Vietnam was not unexpectedly a major ‘exporter’ of people. But the urge for emigration also had a great deal to do with the closed character of communist states in general and thus all of our selected states, except for the resolutely closed North Korea, had significant outflows of people. China has suffered least from the problem of emigration, and by virtue of the size of its population there are grounds for the rest of the world to be thankful for this degree of closure. And as the Soviet and Vietnamese reforms began producing large numbers of ‘economic refugees’, it should not have been surprising that supposedly ‘open’ Western countries rapidly closed their doors to the very countries which they once vilified for being closed. THE IMPACT OF DOMESTIC POLITICS The reforms of communications and culture policy outlined above are an inseparable part of the processes of openness in all reforming communist states. The reduction in economic growth rates and the need to reorganize the economy provided the main impetus for change in all the states we have assessed, but other internal factors also played their part. Many states, most notably the Soviet Union, were suffering from what might be termed social crisis, although it is fair to say that in all reforming states there was a sharp increase in corruption and social unrest after the reforms began. The immediate sensation that the crisis at home had actually deepened was far less evident in China and Vietnam than in the Soviet Union, but in all cases the crisis added to the tendency to polarize politics at home. The polarization at home was evident in the East European cases and resulted in the revolutions of 1989. In the Soviet case the revolutionary transformation took a little longer. But in both China and Vietnam (and North Korea where it


never began), the basic features of the domestic political system have not changed a great deal. As China demonstrated in June 1989, the Chinese Communist Party was prepared to fight for its power and to set very strict limits on domestic political pluralism. As a result, glasnost’ at home had strict limits. By contrast, in the Soviet case, glasnost’ was used by the reformers and conservatives alike to support their respective causese. By mid-1991 there could be little doubt that the domestic political systems in the former communist world had polarized. With North Korea and the GDR at opposite extremes, the most interesting cases for the purposes of our study had been whittled down to a wavering reform in the Soviet Union and an even more cautious domestic political reform in Vietnam and China. The causes of the variation in the domestic reforms are myriad and most of the major features have already been identified. There were also ‘incidental’ triggers of reform in each state, as for example in the Soviet Union the Chernobyl catastrophe showed the costs of secrecy, both to the environment and the health of Soviet citizens and to the international image of the country. To be sure, catastrophe has been used before as part of political struggles, as was the case after the 1976 Tangshan earthquake in China, but it is fair to say that when Gorbachev seized on the Chernobyl issue, he was probably trying to shift the focus of power from the Party apparatus, headed by the Politburo and Secretariat of the Central Committee, to the rejuvenated bodies of state power, headed by the USSR Supreme Soviet. At the same time, as Alexander Yakovlev has argued, the leadership sought to carry through a moral revolution in the consciousness of Soviet citizens.124 Freedom of cultural activity and of communication with the rest of the world was an essential part of this reform in China as well as Vietnam, as it was in reforming Hungary before the revolution of 1989. The process began with discussions of earlier periods and in the Soviet case ultimately the challenge was made to the October Revolution itself. China and Vietnam stopped well short of such sweeping criticisms, and even the majority of protestors at Tiananmen in 1989 remained relatively restrained. The erection of a goddess of democracy in the square, like the support for the visiting Soviet leader in May 1989, was merely part of the hodge-podge of ill-defined ideas that fuelled unrest. Foreigners looking for signs of openness in this process could pick and choose what they liked best, but the result in June was a powerful message about Communist Party rule and the difference between the evolution of communism in East Asia and East Europe. Given these major differences in domestic political change, it is not surprising that there was a different notion of glasnost’ in foreign affairs. In Gorbachev’s early days, foreign policy glasnost’ followed that in domestic politics and was clearly a tool of a still relatively centralized reform process. The main aim of foreign policy glasnost’ was to prepare public opinion for the shift of resources


away from military expenditure to civilian use, and thereby undercut conservative appeals to restore the old priorities. In China some major elements of foreign policy reform preceded domestic reform and therefore the situation was not comparable to the Soviet case. The tactic in the Soviet Union was to dispel the ‘enemy image’ of the West, especially of the United States, Britain and (later) West Germany, as well as restoring normal relations with China. China had done this in the early 1970s with regard to the West and in the mid-1980s with regard to the Soviet Union. Criticisms began to be made of the Soviet armed forces, with the Rust affair playing into Gorbachev’s hands. While the military would not be blamed for losing in Afghanistan—the decision to invade had been a political one—their inefficiency, secrecy and consumption of scarce resources made them a popular target. The attempt to cast glasnost’ on the defence budget was a precondition for reducing it. Neither China nor Vietnam felt it necessary to use glasnost’ to deal with the armed forces, perhaps because in both cases the closer connections between Party and army ensured less trouble in forcing change. Both China and Vietnam felt they could undertake reforms in specific sectors such as defence and economic policy without unleashing glasnost’ and undermining Party power. By the time the East European regimes collapsed in 1989 and despite the imminence of German unification, the bulk of Soviet citizens saw no serious threat from the West.125 But the risks of glasnost’ as a tool of the reformers were demonstrated when the conservative minority, based on the senior ranks of the armed forces and their allies in the defence industry and the Union of Writers of the RSFSR, were able to use glasnost’ to make open attacks on Gorbachev’s foreign policy.126 Public opinion, however, seemed increasingly keen to follow Eastern Europe on the road towards the market and the elections in the Russian Republic in June 1991 demonstrated that glasnost’ and pluralism were essentially working for the reformers. China and Vietnam saw no such use of public opinion, especially on foreign policy issues. Of course, even in the Soviet case it would be wrong to give the impression that public opinion was able to determine Soviet foreign policy. The withdrawal from Afghanistan was part of Gorbachev’s strategy; it was not dictated by public opinion, but admittedly after a certain point it was clear that public opinion would not have tolerated a reversal of the decision to withdraw. The Supreme Soviet Committees on International Affairs and on Defence and State Security did not demonstrably affect the operation of policy, although much has been surmised about its role regarding the future of Germany. By 1991 public opinion was probably in a position to block decisions that appeared to be unpopular; for example, if Gorbachev had wished to send land forces to the Gulf to support a United Nations operation to free Kuwait, the Supreme Soviet would probably have prevented it.


To some extent all the reforming communist states demonstrated an equivocal attitude to the outside world. But here a major distinction can be drawn between the East Europeans, who had much closer and more natural ties to the West, and other states who were always more distant. In this sense the GDR was always going to be unique because it was struggling with the question of national identity. Hungary too was in little doubt that it was part of Europe that looked West. North Korea did not even show the subtle signs of reform seen in pre-1989 East Germany, and because of its remarkably closed ideology of Juche, it earned the title ‘the hermit kingdom’. Nevertheless, despite its relative closure there are signs that there are GDR-like problems about national identity. Vietnam, also once a divided state, was perhaps the most equivocal in its attitude to the outside world because of its mix of a Confucian and Western colonial past, mixed up with an assessment of a successful East Asian region beyond its communist portals. There was no obvious direction in which to turn. China and the Soviet Union were also equivocal in their view of the outside world for other reasons. Both were great empires with grand traditions. Both came to see that their former rivals were often doing far better and thus there was much that could be learned by opening up to the outside world. But China, perhaps because of its longer-lasting traditions of sino-centrism, seemed more determined than the Soviet Union to physically limit the impact of the outside world. An important element in the decision to establish Special Economic Zones and the designation of open cities was a belief that they could act as a buffer zone between China and the outside world: technology could be imported without running the risk of spiritual pollution. Throughout the 1980s the CCP alternately tightened and loosened control of the population. On the whole there has been a trend of increasing looseness, as the logic of reform unleashes personal creativity and individual initiative in the service of economic modernization. However, relaxation does not mean pluralism, and Deng Xiaoping in particular has been quick to restrict what he considers untoward liberalization. Many of the reforms in culture and communications do, in fact, have their domestic origins in economics. The expansion of tourism into China is the most obviously and simply economically-determined reform and has been a far more prominent feature than anywhere else in the reforming communist world. Whether this is due to the greatness of the Chinese civilization or even a more natural feature of an economic culture that takes more quickly to the service sector, tourism and the increased inflow of foreigners was far more striking in China than anywhere else. Before 1978, tourism to China, as elsewhere in the communist world, was regarded as cultural diplomacy. However, policy changed dramatically in 1978 when the leadership recognized that tourism could become a substantial foreign exchange earner, and as such could play a large role in the new development strategy by paying for China’s imports of technology and expertise.127 By 1988 tourism had become worth US$2.2 billion in foreign


exchange to the Chinese economy. Chinese were sent abroad to gain the expertise and experience needed for China’s modernization. A feature of domestic politics that drove foreign policy reform in many of the communist states was the matter of national reunification. Yet this did not apply to Hungary, and in the case of North Korea there is no clear evidence that the desire for national reunification led to any serious reform. The case of the GDR is somewhat more ambiguous for there were signs of domestic reform from time to time, although ultimately a worry about maintaining a separate identity put a brake on reformist tendencies. As in the case of North Korea, it was probably recognized, albeit not openly stated, that reform would ultimately lead to absorption by the stronger part of the divided state. A case certainly can be made that Vietnam and China were very well aware that national reunification could be furthered by reform. In Vietnam, as the economic crisis bit harder, it became clear that austere communist rule from Hanoi alienated the South. What is more, the united country could take advantage of the contacts the South had with a Vietnamese diaspora and experience in dealing with the West in order to bring in FDI and expertise. China was not yet at the stage of formal integration of recently re-acquired territory, but the imminent return of Hong Kong and the aspiration to re-take Taiwan provoked similar reforms. The pattern of SEZs and blurring of lines around Hong Kong and Fujian were obvious cases in point. Of course, for the Soviet Union, reform merely encouraged separatism. The Russian empire was less well entrenched and glasnost’ in particular made it possible for those most uncomfortable parts of the empire to head for the exit. Indeed, by 1990 it was clear that Gorbachev had to choose between retaining the Union and retaining reforms. He leaned at first to the first option and then careened back towards reform and a looser Union in 1991. Glasnost’ had unleashed all kinds of discussion about nationalism and, unlike China where the cultural identitity of the country was relatively clear, the Soviet Union had long stored up problems because its empire was far less well-integrated. This question of nationalism’s fit with Communist Party rule is one of the most powerful pieces of evidence that when looking at domestic factors in the reform of foreign policy there are wide variations from one country to another. For this reason alone, it should not be surprising that the pattern of reform has been so different in many of the communist states. Because communism was overlayed on nationalism and cultural identity, the reform of communism allows different dimensions of nationalism to assume greater prominence. It was not just a matter of opening up the policies of a communist state, it was also a question of how the underlying culture would react to attempts to create greater openness. In as much as culture is a key feature of nationalism, the differences in the reform of cultural policy were bound to have variable effects on foreign policy.


THE IMPACT OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM One of the trendiest subjects in the modern study of international relations has been the impact of the communications revolution and the ‘shrinkage’ of the globe. For a long time the communist world remained relatively cut off from these trends (however exaggerated). But with openness in communist states came a widening of the bands of communication so that the international system was then able to have an increased impact on the pattern of reform. The process of opening up began with internal politics but the external environment soon took on added importance. And yet each communist state that opened itself to influences from the international system, did so in a distinctive way and with varying results. Perhaps the most important evidence for the role of the international system in helping to shape foreign policy reform in the realm of culture and communications was in the CSCE process.128 Ever since they signed the Helsinki Final Act, the USSR and other East European states came under pressure to bring their culture and communications policy into line with international standards. Although the Final Act was not legally binding, the follow-up conferences provided an opportunity for Western governments to expose failings in the field of human rights and the flow of ideas. It may well have partly been the need to present a more genuine image to the West, as part of his overall strategy of reversing the arms race and reducing military spending, which encouraged Gorbachev to investigate human rights issues. During his visit to France in October 1985 he had reacted angrily to criticism of human rights abuses in the USSR. But the Common European Home did not have credibility when Soviet dissidents were still being sent to Siberia. The other communist states who took part in the Helsinki process had somewhat different attitudes to the process. On the one hand, the brighter light of exposure of human rights abuses challenged the authority of the party and encouraged dissidents. The GDR especially was chary of the CSCE process. The GDR was also concerned that the CSCE, which was supposed to codify the existing boundaries in Europe, and therefore preserve the GDR, was merely encouraging a smudging of those boundaries. Greater communications only made it more obvious that there really was only one German people, despite the obvious economic differences between East and West Germans. Hungary, unlike the GDR, was more pleased with the recognition of its independence that was inherent in the CSCE process, although it was under no illusion that the reality of power was still a dominant Soviet Union. Although it is difficult to ‘prove’, it seems fair to say that the Helsinki process did play an important part in raising the human rights issue and making it more possible for the international system to intervene in what the East Europeans and the Soviet Union had deemed to be domestic affairs. Gorbachev and


Shevardnadze in particular began to speak of the need to apply international standards to Soviet behaviour in human rights issues. It would seem that, as their conception of the needed domestic changes grew more radical, from a certain point they were seeking to use the pressure from the West to bring about the changes in Soviet society that they wished to see anyway, in order to implement their domestic strategy. At the United Nations General Assembly in December 1988, Gorbachev spoke of the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the Helsinki process: ‘Today, the preservation of any kind of ‘closed’ society is hardly possible’. He promised a ‘socialist state based on the rule of law’, and claimed that already there were no political or religious prisoners.129 At the CSCE follow-up meeting which ended in Vienna in January 1989, it was agreed in principle to hold meetings on human rights issues in Paris in 1989, Copenhagen in 1990 and Moscow in 1991. The idea of holding a human rights conference in Moscow had been insistently proposed by the Soviet foreign ministry, and had caused division among the Western allies. At Vienna most Western governments accepted that Moscow could be a suitable venue, provided that the human rights situation continued to improve. The British government stipulated, as a condition for its participation, that the USSR should first achieve international standards in six areas: emigration, religion and culture, freedom of speech, freedom from discrimination, the treatment of prisoners of conscience, and freedom to monitor international agreements. It seemed clear that the Gorbachev leadership was committed to meeting these conditions, not only for the international kudos of hosting the conference but also in order to achieve a pluralist society in the USSR. In the event, the meeting took place weeks after the death of communism in the Soviet Union. The importance of the international dimension was underlined when the Supreme Soviet gave approval to the law on freedom of conscience on 17 November 1990, the day before Gorbachev’s second meeting with the Pope and two days before the opening of the CSCE summit in Paris. By this time, of course, the East Europeans had obtained their independence and the Soviet Union’s relationship with the CSCE process had become simpler because it was less clouded by considerations of the impact on the outer empire. But by far the most unusual case must be the GDR for, as has been argued, this was a ‘doubly penetrated society’. It was exposed to the constant pressure of ideas and the example of an alternative way of life from West Germany, and its political structures were deeply marked by the influence of the Soviet Union and the CPSU. This left the GDR vulnerable, both from its more democratic and economically dynamic Western sibling, and—in the end—to a change in political leadership and policy in the USSR. The SED was unique in the ‘world socialist community’ in that it had to operate within what was effectively a pluralist information environment. GDR citizens were voracious consumers of


West German television and radio programmes, and of whatever Western literature they could lay their hands on. With the open border until 1961, and the growing ‘openness’ associated with détente and closer German-German relations from the early 1970s onwards, the SED found it harder and harder to control the flow of information and ideas into their society. Whatever the twists and turns of SED cultural and communications policies in the 1980s, the long-term but persistent impact of this increasingly pluralistic information environment should not be underestimated. In the 1970s, the issue of Jewish emigration had been the main criterion by which the standard of human rights in the USSR was assessed, and the question of East Germans being able to leave the GDR was a similarly important litmus test for Berlin. In the German case there evolved a pragmatic relationship based on buying people out, but with the exit remaining very much closed to the general population. It was therefore not surprising that a key feature of the revolutionary process in Eastern Europe as a whole, and the GDR in particular, was the unstoppable flow of people, first through Hungary, and then directly in Berlin, to the West. While the practice of buying out East Germans may have been morally dubious, it had the advantage of keeping lines of contact open and doors ajar. By creating hope and expectation of departure for the West it was well known that there was a better life outside of the GDR and therefore the legitimacy of the East German regime was always under threat. The relative absence of such contacts in North Korea is one of the reasons for less optimism about the inevitability of reform in Pyongyang. In the late 1980s in the Soviet Union the question of emigration was rapidly transformed. The Jewish lobby in the United States focused on anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union more than emigration, if only because hundreds of thousands of Jews were now being allowed to leave for Israel. Particular concern was expressed about the activities of extremist Russian chauvinist groups. The threats of violence and pogroms against Soviet Jews, circulated by a number of organizations like ‘Pamiat’ (Memory), and ‘Otechestvo’ (Fatherland), itself increased the desire of Soviet Jews to emigrate. With the United States reluctant to accept the now permitted outflow of Jews, most of them in 1989 and 1990 went to Israel. According to Yury Reschetov, head of the Humanitarian Department of the foreign ministry, this led to a ‘steep deterioration’ in Moscow’s relations with Arab countries.131 Vietnam was the only other country where issues of emigration provoked reactions from the international system. The flows of people from Vietnam have been for various reasons, but the relative decline of ODP numbers and the increased flow of ‘economic migrants’ as a result of the dislocation of economic reform, led to concern in South-East Asia and Hong Kong that something more had to be done to staunch the flow. Fears about even larger flows from the Soviet Union began to be articulated in the early 1990s. In both the Soviet and


Vietnamese cases there was a not so hidden agenda to use the fear of large migrations as a way of obtaining more aid from the international system. Soviet officials, in pleading for a Grand Bargain in 1991, were especially candid about playing the ‘imminent collapse card’ as a way of getting foreign aid. Vietnam was even more isolated than the Soviet Union and hoped to see Western lending policy changed as a way of restricting the numbers of migrants. The irony of the migration issue was not lost on all concerned. After years of criticizing communist states for a closed attitude to migration, the complaint of Western governments was now about the risks of openness. Gates were being closed to those seeking entry into the richer world, with the excuse that not only were there insufficient places in the West, but that the communist states were now more liberal and therefore there should be less reason to leave. While this excuse had some truth in the case of the Soviet Union, it was far less accurate in the cases of Vietnam and China. Both countries had large populations and could clearly swamp the compassion of the West by sending millions of migrants. The doors to Hong Kong from China were long closed for this reason, which suited both the communist rulers of China and the capitalists in Hong Kong. These issues grew incredibly complex when one considers that many of the so-called ‘boat people’ from Vietnam who ended up in Hong Kong came first as ‘bus people’ to China from Vietnam. This issue was tied up not only with Sino-Vietnamese relations, but also Chinese relations with Hong Kong and Vietnamese relations with the outside world as a whole. The unique circumstances defied effective comparison with migration issues elsewhere in the communist world. Yet more evidence of the unique way in which the international community affected foreign policy reform in communist states can be seen on the matter of reactions to nationalism. Perhaps the most important example that affected international stability was the matter of the unity of the Soviet Union. Outside pressure did not prevent the central authorities in the Soviet Union from using force, or the threat of force, to keep the Soviet Union together. The West was tolerant of the use of force in Baku in January 1990, but the following April Moscow barely avoided having sanctions imposed on it by the United States Congress, in retaliation for the Soviet blockade of Lithuania. When push came to shove in August 1991, of course, the Soviet Union remained free to use force within its frontiers without fear of external intervention, but the foreign hostility to the coup leaders helped ensure that the junta lacked legitimacy. In China, the Peking massacre was viewed as unacceptable and sanctions were imposed. But the gradual lifting of most sanctions, despite the continued detention of dissidents and the limited nature of political reform, suggests that for large and powerful countries such as China, sanctions are of limited value. As was evident in the American debate about extending most favoured nation (MFN) trading status to China in 1990 and 1991, there were those in the West who wanted to punish China for its relatively closed domestic system and even for its


occupation of Tibet. But China proved during the Gulf crisis of 1990–1 that it was too important in the shaping of a New World Order to be isolated as if it were a Zimbabwe. The supporters of sanctions argued that the eventual collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union did have something to do with continued Western pressure, even though direct links were impossible to establish. If it could work on a superpower, it was argued, then it could work on a poorer China. But it was not working on China, if only because China occupied a different position in the international system to that the Soviet Union. China was less of a threat to the United States and the West and therefore there was less desire to punish China. China was too important to the stability of East Asia for most East Asians to be happy isolating China. Like the West Europeans regarding the pre-1989 Soviet Union, the closer one was to the problem the more will there was for conciliation and cooperation. Finally, China, unlike the Soviet Union, was able to demonstrate through its reform of foreign economic policy that despite the relative absence of political reform, it was an important part of the world economy and especially the booming economy of East Asia. One could, and indeed one wanted to do business with China far more than with the Soviet Union. Perhaps a more powerful pressure on China might come from the degree of openness that it has already tolerated. Unlike any other communist state, China has sent a significant proportion of its young and educated elite abroad for training. It would seem entirely possible, and indeed likely, that students being sent abroad would on their return to China bring with them the seeds of further reform and openness. This may well in time prove to be the case. However, at the moment though some 60,000 students have been sent abroad with government support, few have returned. According to government figures as few as 22,000 have in fact returned to China, and it is quite clearly concerned about the phenomenon. The CCP during the late 1980s and since 4 June 1989 has both encouraged Chinese students studying abroad to return home, and attempted to explain the figures away by emphasizing that advanced study often takes as long as ten years to complete.132 Inducements to post-graduate students to return to China have now included the offer of guaranteed employment and facilities for research and additional personal benefits such as housing and access to social amenities.133 On the other hand, the movement of people in and out of China may indeed be an important factor in reform. In the first place though the overseas students of the 1980s may only have returned home in small numbers, those from the 1950s are of considerable political significance. Educated in the USSR and Eastern Europe they are the generation currently responsible for the day-to-day administration of the PRC at the highest level. Both Li Peng, the premier of the State Council, and Jiang Zemin, general secretary of the CCP, were educated in


the USSR and are fluent Russian speakers. It has been argued that they may be welldisposed towards relations with Russia within the context of the PRC’s open policy rather than towards Japan, the USA and Western Europe. Secondly, the political and social influence of foreign experts, particularly in importing new ideas, can easily be understated as well as exaggerated. Foreign experts remain few in number proportionate to China’s population, often geographically isolated, and frequently unable to communicate with those around them. Nonetheless, they incrementally increase exposure to the outside world, and in some cases may actively seek to do so. Some Christian missionary activities have clearly been undertaken by some foreign experts during the 1980s. Increased contact between academics in China and their counterparts in the rest of the world—in the sciences as well as the social sciences—have helped to shape the new world view of the former.134 In the evolution of the debate on the Three Gorges Project during the mid 1980s, an investigative group from Canada called in by the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference provided an environmental impact assessment which helped to delay the Project’s immediate implementation as part of the 7th Five Year Plan. The impact on the Three Gorges Project is interesting but perhaps more significant in that this debate was one of the first occasions on which public policy was debated in public and saw the emergence of a genuine public opinion with autonomy from the CCP.135 Thirdly, the movement of overseas Chinese, particularly those from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, into and out of South and East China, and to some extent the circulation of all the people (citizens of the PRC and otherwise) in the greater Hong Kong area of Guangdong and South China, has clearly had consequences for policy and practice on culture and communications. The movement of some 25 million people a year has meant that the previous laws and regulations on entry to and exit from the PRC have had to be altered. The previous extent of movement control was no longer practical, and was indeed becoming counterproductive. In the wake of the events of 4June 1989, it is fashionable to minimize the PRC’s willingness to take notice of international pressures. It is, of course, completely accurate to argue that the CCP has dug in its heels internationally over its right to shoot its own citizens, in particular on the weekend of 4 June 1989. However, it is somewhat misleading to argue more generally that the CCP is never willing to succumb to international pressure. The evidence is to the contrary, even on issues of human rights. Indeed, for the CCP one of the paradoxes of its actions in 1989 is that previously throughout the 1980s it had quite deliberately in response to international pressure been improving its human rights profile, although admittedly starting from an appallingly low base.136 More generally, religious tolerance—though clearly a function of domestic considerations as part of the CCP’s concern to exercise less control and encourage diversity among the population—was also designed to meet


international demands. Although China has not gone as far as other reforming communist states in opening religious policy, it has been more conscious of external pressures than perhaps any other country apart from the Soviet Union. Perhaps the relative confidence in China about religious matters has allowed it to be less paranoid about a concession on this subject, if only because religion is far less important in China than in any other communist state. Thus, for example, it seems reasonable to assume that Muslims from Xinjiang and Ningxia were allowed to go on hajj to Mecca as part of a process whereby investment from the oil-rich Gulf, particularly Saudi Arabia, might come to north and north-west China. Tolerance towards at least established church Christianity may similarly be seen as part of the creation of a climate of international opinion conducive to the provision of aid, assistance and investment to China. In a similar though clearly not identical vein, the creation of a more open legal system has been the sine qua non for the development of substantial foreign economic relations. Without such a legal system neither countries nor individual companies would be prepared to treat with the PRC. With all the new developments in both form and substance, it is worth recalling that throughout the 1980s, and indeed into the 1990s, the PRC’s cultural diplomacy has continued to fill the lacunae in foreign and diplomatic affairs as before 1978. The pragmatism on this matter seems far more sophisticated than anything else seen in the communist world and goes some way to explain why China can often reform without being seen to reform. Duplicity can be another word for pragmatism and certainly ‘secret diplomacy’ is a much under-assessed feature of international relations. Thus, as already noted, Chinese pilgrims travelled to Mecca and Saudi Arabians invested in Xinjiang, even before diplomatic relations were established. At a meeting between the ‘President of the Taipei’ (sic, as reported in the China Daily) Olympic Committee and PRC Vice-Premier, Wu Xueqian, in Peking during mid-1990, the latter stated that he ‘hoped sports exchanges between the two sides [of Taiwan Straits] will promote peaceful reunification’.137 More remarkably by the standards of pre-1978 China, in June 1990 the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities established its Beijing Liaison Office ‘to promote scientific cooperation and exchange’.138 CONCLUSION As we have seen in previous sections, there has been a wide range of reforms in the communist states studied here, and the patterns of, and explanations for the reforms vary enormously. Not all aspects of culture and communications policy were opened up in each state, and when openness took place, it was not always in the same way. All states saw a degree of opening of policy in culture, including theatre, films, literature and the wider artistic world. Religious contacts were also broadened. A wider range of views were seen on the media and academic links


were also extended. Even the flows of people increased when wider reforms were underway. But the diversity of the experience of each state, and even at different times within a single state, defies overarching generalization. Of course, it can be agreed that there is always a complex link between domestic politics and the international system in shaping the reform of communications and cultural policy. It can be argued that a precondition for the success of the reforms in culture and communications policy is a favourable international situation. The opening up of the Soviet Union and China in the fields of culture and communications did not take place purely because of pressure from abroad. It was a combination of that pressure with the desire of Gorbachev and his allies and advisers to embark on a course of radical reform, widening the limits as circumstances dictated or allowed, which brought about the changes. The entry of new radical forces onto the political arena meant that conservative opposition to defence cuts or to the withdrawals from Afghanistan and then Eastern Europe was marginalized. China’s reform era has lasted longer than that of any other communist state, and paradoxically Communist Party rule continues while the movement has died in its European home. Both those characteristics are probably functions of the PRC’s relative isolation even in the 1980s compared to Eastern Europe, and the absence of civil society, at least until the late 1980s. China’s isolation is a function of culture as much as of distance and language (not that language and culture can be so carefully differentiated). Even if there were no limitations on access to China imposed by its government, it seems likely that inter-cultural communication and understanding would be less than immediate. Language, of course, provides an extra barrier. One important consequence of the absence of civil society is that cultural restraints on actions are often as important as political (or more accurately, state) restraints. In this context China’s aggressive (if not xenophobic) nationalism is significant: the pressure is for Chinese modernization, not simply the transplantation of Atlantic culture. In sharp contrast has been the experience of the smaller countries, and especially those in Eastern Europe. Vietnam, as the only reforming, but smaller state in Asia, was always more deeply affected by the Confucian tradition, even though, like China, it too adopted a communist overlay. Like China, Vietnam also has a diaspora, and indeed a far larger one as a proportion of the population remaining in the motherland. As a country in East Asia where democracy is far less evident than in Europe, Vietnam was under far less pressure to open up in a way that forced such a stark choice on the East Europeans. Vietnam, like China, had an easier choice and perhaps even greater hopes that it could find a path between relatively complete closure and complete surrender to the international capitalist system. Indeed, it can be argued that the major difference between Vietnam and China on the one hand, and the East Europeans on the other, was


their distinctive cultural tradition and the fact they had to deal with and compare themselves to East Asians rather than West Europeans. Hungary is, of course, also a small country, but one that sees itself as being very much in the heart of Europe. To this extent, it shares with other small countries which are also relatively open to the international system, for example, the Netherlands, certain foreign policy preoccupations connected with the need to maximize their ‘room for manoeuvre’.139 To the extent that small size, low population and limited economic resources restrict the ability of these states to assert themselves in world politics, they are likely to rely more heavily than larger states on cultural and educational policy both internally and externally. In German schools (in both East and West) it was often said that Germany used to be called ‘das Land der Dichter und Denker’ (‘the country of poets and thinkers’). This conscious emphasis on the importance of culture and ideas to the German identity helps to explain why the SED made such strenuous efforts to channel and control the flow of information inside the GDR.140 In terms of this comparative study, East Germany is a particularly interesting case because of the division of the German nation. The GDR was the weaker of the two German states created in 1949, and never succeeded in generating substantial democratic or national legitimacy. The SED was thus in the unique position amongst ruling communist parties in industrialized and literate societies in the communist world—with the possible exception of Estonia—in that it had to operate in what was effectively a pluralistic information environment. Although the SED made strenuous efforts to control the media and the arts, it was unable to prevent the ‘penetration’ of East German society by West German radio and television. With détente and the steady improvement in German-German relations, the GDR authorities also had to deal with the high level of travel and personal contacts between their citizens and West Germans. Not only did the SED have to develop cultural and communications policies which could contain—if not counter—these persistent and irresistible pressures from the ‘capitalist West’, from the mid-1980s onwards they also had to respond to the challenges posed by glasnost’ in the Soviet Union. The reform programme of Mikhail Gorbachev, with its call for more openness and democratization, struck at the very heart of the SED’s system of political and ideological control. Ultimately the collapse of the GDR and Hungarian communist states as viable entities was the result of the Party’s inability to contain the twin pressures arising from ‘double penetration’—namely, the increasingly more visible example of a functioning pluralist democracy in West Germany, and the pressure for radical reform emanating from the very heart of the ‘world socialist community’, the Soviet Union. What was left as communist states were Asian regimes that made their own revolutions—China and Vietnam. As the Soviet Union abandoned Communist Party rule, what became clear was that states find their own paths to


reform that in large measure reflect their own political, economic, military and social culture.

4 FOREIGN POLICY IDEOLOGY Judy Batt, Margot Light, Adrian Hyde-Price, Gerald Segal and Brantly Womack

Ideology is an imprecise word. It is often used to refer to both the intellectual framework in which reality is interpreted and the official explanation or justification given for behaviour. Of course, an explanation of behaviour itself presents an interpretation of reality, and in an ideal world the official, public view of reality and the ‘real’ view of reality would coincide. Public justifications would match private thoughts. But even among individuals, and certainly among nations, the correspondence between intellectual framework and official explanation is often less than complete. In an attempt to introduce more precision in the use of the word, one might reserve the term ‘ideology’ for the general intellectual frame of reference, and use the term ‘orthodoxy’ for the official explanation or justification of policy. Psychological explanations, rational actor models, Zeitgeister, and so forth all attempt to establish the intellectual orientations of actors. Orthodoxy can be considered a part of ideology, and official texts are an important source of information concerning ideological orientation, but for the understanding of orthodoxy, the interpretation of official texts is the principal methodology. In practice, however, the term ideology is not so narrowly defined. Ideology is often used to refer to general philosophical assumptions as well as doctrine guiding specific policies. In short, ideology has a philosophical, programmatic and behavioural function. The central problem is the relationship between theory and practice, as Stalin noted, ‘theory, comrades, is lagging behind practice’. In the analysis that follows we have found it impossible to impose a simple definition of ideology. As we are essentially interested in the relationship between changing theory and changing practice, we have little choice but to use the term in a flexible way. In any case, ideology never has been static, and in an analysis of reform such as we are undertaking, it is precisely this process of change which lies at the heart of our study.1 We have chosen to assess the reform of ideology at the end of this study, when it is common practice to do so much earlier in a work of this kind. Our choice was in part determined by the fact that in so many of the reforms we assessed,


theory usually followed practice. Thus, by taking ideology at the end, it is also possible to use this section as a form of conclusion that pulls together many of the economic, security and cultural aspects of reform. Because ideology became so closely intertwined with practice, the final two sections reviewing the role of domestic factors and the international system serve as a sort of conclusion to the entire study and therefore tend to stray quite often from more narrow definitions of ideology. Many methodologies can be used to interpret ideology. For example, the problem of analysing Vietnamese foreign policy ideology in terms of openness is perhaps best illustrated by the first few lines of the Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, proclaimed by Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi on 2 September, 1945: ‘All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’2 Of course, Ho attributes these lines to the American Declaration of Independence, and goes on to quote the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. The structure of the Declaration is modelled on the American one, with the major part being the detailing of the Train of Abuses. The language is not always Jeffersonian (‘They have made it impossible for our national bourgeoisie to prosper; they have mercilessly exploited our workers’), but the concept of the document is more American than it is Russian, Chinese or Vietnamese. The distinction between ideology and orthodoxy is especially useful in analysing the behaviour of communist regimes. The official commitment to Marxism-Leninism in general, and to a current vocabulary of accepted arguments, clichés and terminology, means that the official explanation of foreign policy is constrained in its articulation. Given the state monopoly of media, orthodoxy dominates the public discussion of foreign policy. Changes in orthodoxy may seem minute or tedious to the external observer, and breakthroughs in orthodoxy might not occur at the same time as significant policy changes. Due to Lenin’s famous distinction between strategy and tactics, MarxismLeninism is especially flexible as an orthodoxy. In his work Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder, Lenin rejects criticism that he has been too ‘unprincipled’ in compromising with enemies, and argues that anyone who shrank from necessary compromises was deficient in their courage and commitment to Marxism. In an impressive dialectical leap, total strategic commitment justified total tactical flexibility. Flexibility of official behaviour and justifications is especially evident in foreign policy, with perhaps the most famous case being the Hitler-Stalin pact. Moreover, many tactical manoeuvres or inconvenient aspects of foreign policy are often simply not officially acknowledged, for instance, party-to-party relations which may be at cross purposes with state-to-state relations. Duplicity

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and hypocrisy are hardly the monopoly of communist governments, but their orthodoxy has often been a bewildering mixture of doctrinaire strategy and pragmatic tactics, loosely tethered to reality by tacit assumptions. Despite its instrumental flexibility, Marxism-Leninism as an orthodoxy sets a pattern of public discourse which predisposes policy toward those options which conform to the orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is not a straitjacket for policy because there are always a variety of possible interpretations of official doctrine. The process of bending and stretching the orthodoxy to fit a new policy direction is an important part of policy development and consolidation. This process of orthodox adjustment is particularly evident in domestic policy, but it can be seen in foreign policy as well.3 In the case of the East European states, the role of orthodoxy was usually also crucially involved with the maintenance of their subordination to the Soviet Union, although precisely the opposite was true in the case of Romania. In these circumstances, it is much easier to distinguish between an orthodoxy and some alternative ‘real’ definition of the national interest, historical-cultural traditions or free choice of the people than, for example, in the Soviet Union, China or even Vietnam. In the Soviet, Chinese and Vietnamese cases, Marxist-Leninist ideology was intermingled with indigenous factors and the revolutions certainly seemed to be more home-grown than in Eastern Europe, or even to some extent North Korea. Until recently the Communist Party could, with some credibility, claim responsibility for the achievements of the country since the revolutions. In other words, the suggestions of artificiality, irrationality and coercion implicit in the definition of ideological orthodoxy used here come through much more clearly in the East European context. If the role of orthodoxy thus has some different dimensions in Eastern Europe, the content of ideology also has a specific emphasis, especially in the field of foreign policy. The key ideological issue in foreign policy from the point of view of the East European communist regimes except the GDR was not so much the nature of ‘imperialism’ and the global class conflict: these elements were present, but had little significance other than as ritualistic signals of obeisance to the Soviet leadership. The only really living issue in foreign policy ideology for most East European regimes (with the notable exception of the GDR and Czechoslovakia after 1969) was the question of the regimes’ latitude for pursuing autonomous policy objectives, whether in the domestic or in the foreign field, independently of the Soviet Union and diverging from the Soviet ‘model’. East European communist regimes were driven by two incompatible objectives, the tension between which lay behind every major crisis in the post-war period and was eventually only resolved by their collapse. On the one hand, the imperative of conformity to the orthodoxy as defined and imposed by the Soviet Union (which was required as much for their own survival as for the maintenance of Soviet control) and, on the other hand, the imperative of maximizing their room


for manoeuvre by adapting or evading the dictates of that orthodoxy in order to win some credibility with their own populations and to mitigate the costs of implementing the grossly inefficient and inappropriate Soviet political and economic ‘model’. The peculiarities of the position of ideology in this situation has been captured by Maria Markus, who made the distinction between ‘overt’ and ‘covert’ modes of legitimation in Eastern Europe.4 The formal tenets of Marxist-Leninist ideology played no real role in the domestic legitimation of the regime, but their ritualistic regurgitation at public events served to remind everyone of ‘geopolitical reality’, i.e. the supposedly immutable fact of the country’s subordination to the Soviet Union. On the other hand, by demonstrating some autonomy from Moscow, the regimes could hope to win some sort of popular support or approval as practitioners of the ‘art of the possible’ or ‘pragmatic realists’. This ‘covert’ legitimation strategy is most closely associated with the Kadar regime in Hungary, although in the early 1980s, Honecker toyed with a similar course for the GDR. Of course, the ideological environment of communism in China and Vietnam has been radically different from that of European communism from its beginnings. None of the East Asian communist states suffered from the same tensions that the East Europeans endured. Certainly after the Sino-Soviet split China emerged as a more independent ideological pole which gave the North Koreans and the Vietnamese both problems and possibilities in manoeuvring between their great power allies. The comparison between the East European and East Asian experiences reveals so many differences that it is striking that Marxism-Leninism could appeal to political forces in such different contexts. Part of the explanation, of course, is that the focus of Marxism-Leninism was shifted in each environment. European Marxism was the product of an indigenous intellectual and political heritage. It considered itself the culmination as well as the rejection of European capitalism. Russia was half in and half out of the European world, both intellectually and culturally, but there too a sense of European consanguinity pervaded Leninist ideology, if not Stalinist practice. By contrast, the indigenous cultures and ideologies of China and Vietnam were rattled by contact with the West, and the appeal of communism in Asia relied on its anti-imperialism, its proven effectiveness in the October Revolution, and the Comintern’s willingness to support indigenous radicals. The critique of capitalism was largely irrelevant, but the support of a worldwide, modern organization with a self-confident and comprehensive ideology was vital. As Clifford Geertz has observed, in times of cultural upheaval, ideology replaces accepted traditions as a framework of significance for social action.5 In the intellectual and political rubble of failed Confucianism, Asia needed an ‘ism’, not just pragmatic politics. As a result, for China (and to a lesser extent for Vietnam) it was the selfconfidence of Marxism as a science and the effectiveness of Party organization


that mattered, not the dogmatic details. Ideological factionalism was much less prevalent than in Europe. Compared to Lenin, the writings of Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh are relatively free of intrarevolutionary polemics. Communism provided a focus for heroism and self-sacrifice, a new spiritual centre for a world turned upside down. Marxism-Leninism was more important in the total orientation it provided than in its doctrinal specifics. The best example of doctrinal flexibility in Asian communism was also its defining experience, namely rural revolution. It would not be too extreme to say that rural revolution—the surrounding of the city by the countryside—is antithetical to Marx’s idea of the purpose of a Communist Party. It is explicable in Marxist-Leninist categories, but it arose from the practical needs of survival. Practice came before theory, but practice required the ideological certainty of the science of Marxism-Leninism, however irrelevant its details, and the heroic, mass-oriented elitism of the revolutionary party, however weak its proletarian consciousness. The eventual revolutionary victories were, of course, attributed to the correctness of communist ideology and Party leadership. But the reality of why the revolution succeeded was more complex.7 More importantly, the assumption of ideological and organizational correctness misled the postrevolutionary regimes into adopting Stalinist policy goals and a totalitarian Partystate structure. Because the revolutions were incomparably more complete in China and Vietnam than in Eastern Europe, Stalinism was applied more effectively, in both its strengths and its weaknesses. Because the revolutions were more rooted in popular struggle, the inevitable problems of Stalinism led to more internal ferment within the Party-state, even though the party and its orthodoxy could not be questioned. There are also subtle but basic differences between the world outlook and subsequent foreign policy ideology of China and Vietnam compared to that of the Soviet Union. Before the October Revolution Lenin assumed that revolution in the era of imperialism was necessarily world revolution. As the reality of ‘socialism in one country’ became apparent, the tasks of foreign policy became those of coping with the capitalist world and fostering revolutionary movements. The centrality and world-historical significance of the Soviet Union was clear, and the world to be dealt with was unexpectedly familiar. By contrast, the world consciousness of the Chinese and Vietnamese Communist Parties was formed while they were children of the Comintern. They had a stronger spirit of teamwork within the socialist camp and a more problematic sense of their own individual world-historical identity and significance.8 Unlike Lenin, Mao and Ho did not expect capitalism to collapse at their success, but they did anticipate that their victories would represent major changes in the balance of forces between capitalism and socialism, and that the socialist world would hold together under Soviet leadership. International


disillusionment and searching for new world roles seems to be a larger part of the Asian experience than it was for the Soviet Union, at least until recently. In sum, when it came time for various communist states to reform their foreign policy ideology, they did so in distinctive ways in keeping with their particular conditions. And yet, given what lay at the core of their shared ideology, it was also reasonable to suppose that at least some features of the reform process might also be shared. An ideology that focused on class struggle and a hostile view of the capitalist world, might well be expected to undergo a reform that included less class struggle. As a result, war between the opposing ideologies would not necessarily be inevitable and there might then be less reason to support struggles for national liberation. The reform of ideology might also include a greater acceptance of international interdependence both in the realms of security and economics. Of the six countries identified in our study, five (all except North Korea) underwent at least a degree of reform of ideology. The specific nature and pace of those reforms depended both on national distinctiveness and reactions to trends in the international system. THE COURSE OF REFORM The beginning of the reform of Soviet foreign policy ideology was amongst the earliest of the changes that took place after Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the CPSU. It soon gathered pace and became known universally as the ‘new political thinking’. Some aspects of new thinking pre-date the Gorbachev reforms and can even be traced to the limited reform of the Khrushchev era. With regard to the Third World, for example, the new political thinking subsumed work that Soviet theorists had already begun to do in the 1970s, questioning previous assumptions about the nature of underdevelopment and the prospects for socialist development in the Third World.9 Other aspects of the new thinking could also be traced back to the late 1970s and early 1980s, if not earlier.10 It can be argued that the process of formulating the new political thinking turned out to be merely a transition to a complete abandonment of ‘socialist foreign policy’. Nonetheless, it remains important to trace how the new theory made its impact on the conduct and content of Soviet policy in the late 1980s. By 1987 it had become clear that Soviet foreign policy ideology had grown more open to the influence of ideas from other schools of thought, although Soviet theorists did not always acknowledge the extent of this influence. Moreover, the frequency with which Marxist-Leninist classics were cited in support of new concepts suggested, at least initially, a more closed system of thought than the ideas themselves convey. Ideological reform was phased in, or in another metaphor, when you learn to swim you begin by holding on to the sides of the pool.


Similarly, Chinese foreign policy reform has roots well before the ‘official’ date of reform in 1978. In its first two decades after 1949, Chinese foreign policy contained a number of divergent initiatives, some of which, under different circumstances, might conceivably have led to a more open international policy.11 But as it happened, the change in Chinese foreign policy towards openness occurred in two long, overlapping phases, the first lasting from 1970 to 1982, and the second beginning in 1978 and lasting to the present. The first phase was based on a tacit and pragmatic rejection of the leftist dogmatism and idealism that had briefly held sway in the Cultural Revolution. The basic tenets of China’s orthodoxy were that the back of American imperialism had been broken by the war in Vietnam, that the social imperialism of the Soviet Union therefore became the principal contradiction of Chinese foreign policy, and that China should form as broad a united front as possible against the Soviet Union. Behind the orthodoxy lay the realizations that China’s new world revolution of leftism was stillborn, that the Soviet Union posed a real threat to Chinese security, especially if it could collaborate with the United States, that Japan could also pose a major problem, and that the Vietnam War had for the first time created the opportunity for a non-hostile relationship with the United States. The second phase grew out of the tactical successes of the first. Initially more of an attitude than an ideology, it wanted to grasp the opportunities for making China rich and powerful presented by increasing openness. Given the general relaxation of orthodox tension after the death of Mao, considerable pragmatic experimentation was allowed. The eventual orthodoxy was that modernization and openness are linked, and that China should pursue its national interests in an essentially peaceful world environment. Despite the strains of the June 1989 massacre, this is still China’s foreign policy orthodoxy. The smaller states also reformed their foreign policy ideology (except North Korea) but they did so in very different ways. Hungary, which undeniably explored the possibilities of reform well before anyone else, always remained haunted by the lessons of 1956 and the knowledge that there were limits to any reform that could be imposed from Moscow if they were not self-imposed first. And yet Hungary did find some room for a new openness in foreign policy ideology. Even the GDR found some space of its own, only to decide for its own reasons to close down as the risks to the system from openness became too great. Vietnam, which learned its reform of foreign policy ideology from both China and the Soviet Union, had more freedom of manoeuvre than the East Europeans, but adopted reform much later. After the revolutionary events of 1989 in Eastern Europe, the perils of ideological reform appeared all the more stark to those communist regimes which clung to power.


National security Criticism of old and formulation of new concepts of national security are amongst the most far-reaching of the changes in foreign policy ideology. Since time immemorial, according to a prominent Soviet foreign policy official, most countries have defined national security in terms of territorial integrity and the inviolability of the state. Under the ‘old’ thinking in the Soviet Union, however, national security was also interpreted as the defence of the ‘achievements of socialism’. What this really meant was defence of the Stalinist model of socialism. And far from enhancing Soviet national security, it undermined it. A dichotomous view of a world divided into two opposing camps prevailed, helping to cause dangerous confrontation. Once the two superpowers acquired vast arsenals of nuclear weapons, conflict between the two camps became potentially catastrophic. But even when the arms control process began, the principle of parity dominated the policy of both superpowers because neither could conceive of security in anything other than military and technical terms.12 According to the new political thinking in all reforming states, security could not be assured by military means alone. Nor could it be achieved by individual states. In the nuclear age, the national security of individual states depended upon international security. Since security was indivisible and interdependent, it either applied to all states or to none. In essence, it was a political problem, requiring political solutions. It therefore demanded some understanding of the interests of other states, mutual trust, flexible foreign policies and the recognition that conflict and tension were caused by economic, political and humanitarian disagreements as well as by military confrontation. The number of nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction must urgently be reduced.13 From the Soviet perspective it was also important to de-ideologize international relations, although China and Vietnam took this reform much less far. Yet all reformers could agree that more attention must be paid to the cooperative aspects of peaceful coexistence and less to the competition between social and political systems.14 In the process of working out the meaning of security in a nuclear age, and the means by which it can be achieved, Soviet and Chinese policy-makers reevaluated their acceptance of Lenin’s theory that war was inevitable and of the Clausewitzian dictum that war was the continuation of politics by other means. Lenin and succeeding generations of political theorists believed that just wars (for example, wars in defence of socialism or wars of national liberation) should be distinguished from unjust wars (fought in pursuance of aggressive aims). The former were deserving of support, the latter were sometimes to be resisted and always to be condemned. But the logic of nuclear weapons and the risks of nuclear war between the superpowers led the Soviet Union, first under Khrushchev, and more clearly under Brezhnev, to reject the idea that war was


inevitable and to sever the connection between war and politics. The Sino-Soviet split was in part because Peking disagreed with the comrades in the Kremlin about this subject, although by the early 1980s China also came to the same conclusion. When China finally changed its official view (its actual policy on nuclear weapons was always more circumspect than its declaratory policy), there was general agreement amongst Soviet and Chinese policy-makers and analysts that the huge destructive power of nuclear weapons made it impossible to consider military force the continuation of politics. Nuclear war could not be a rational means of policy since there was no political aim that could justify the use of nuclear weapons. Moreover, the distinction between just and unjust wars no longer had any meaning.15 As we will see later, this aspect of the new political thinking had a profound impact on Soviet relations with Third World regimes which were engaged in fighting insurgencies. But a more immediate effect concerned the Soviet determination to retain nuclear parity and the belief in the efficacy of stockpiling nuclear weapons. The new thinkers maintained that the sheer number of nuclear weapons owned by both sides in the nuclear balance undermined international security. Although the threat of a premeditated nuclear attack abated, there was an increasing danger that nuclear war could become the terrible consequence of an escalating crisis or, worse still, the unintended outcome of an accident.16 At first Soviet policy-makers and theorists called for a reduction in the level of military confrontation between the two superpowers and their respective military alliances, while ‘preserving the principle of military and strategic parity at all stages’.17 Gradually, however, the idea of war prevention (rather than preparation for possible war) began to dominate Soviet thinking. Soviet strategists began to formulate new strategic doctrines based on the concepts of Reasonable sufficiency’ (that is, sufficient arms for the purposes of defence, but insufficient to permit an offensive attack) and ‘defensive defence’. Although civilian analysts and military strategists disagreed about the details of what this meant,18 the seriousness of Soviet intentions was reflected in the progress made in nuclear and conventional arms control negotiations, as well as in the unilateral cuts in soldiers and arms announced by Gorbachev at the United Nations in December 1988.19 The new thinking about security influenced Soviet attitudes to regional conflicts. Classical Marxist-Leninist theory held that conflict was endemic in class society. Once socialist states came into existence, the antagonism between classes was transposed to conflict between the states that represented those classes. It was historically determined that the conflict between classes within societies would lead to socialist revolution. Conflicts between national liberation movements and colonial powers were also inevitable and socialists should support national liberation movements in their just struggle against their colonial


occupying powers. There was, it was thought, a ‘natural’ alliance between national liberation and socialism. After decolonization, Soviet policy-makers tended to support both Third World governments fighting separatist movements and the socialist-oriented governments that had opted for non-capitalist development. The conflicts in which these governments were involved were considered to be part of the national liberation struggle. It was taken for granted that if the United States was involved in the conflict, the Soviet Union should support the other side.20 Soviet policy-makers and theorists came to to classify national liberation struggles as regional conflicts. They recognized that regional conflicts were potentially very dangerous. One reason for this was that they frequently occurred between factions that were allied to different superpowers. As a result, the superpowers could easily be drawn in. There was always the danger, therefore, that they would escalate into indirect or even direct superpower conflict. At times of East-West tension, any conflict between the superpowers could turn into nuclear confrontation and become very dangerous. Another reason why regional conflicts were hazardous was their propensity to spread. Local conflicts not only had a tendency to spill over from one issue to another (economic conflict can easily escalate to military confrontation, for example) but they were also inclined to spread geographically. They were therefore unlikely to remain local. These inherent dangers made it essential that regional conflicts were resolved before they became violent. And where violence has already erupted, every effort must be made to find a political resolution acceptable to the disputing parties that will end the violence. Political settlements entailed patient negotiation to achieve national reconciliation, the formation of coalition governments and, if necessary, international guarantees to prevent external intervention. Because of their status and power, according to proponents of the new political thinking, the great powers had a combined responsibility to cooperate in the search for durable political solutions to regional conflicts.21 It is clear that Soviet experience of involvement in Third World conflicts was a major reason for the new thinking about how to resolve them. By 1985 Soviet aims in Afghanistan were no closer to being achieved than they had been immediately after the intervention in 1979. Moreover, there were still armed conflicts in Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Cambodia and Nicaragua. The new Soviet leadership realized that Third World socialist-oriented governments could not defeat domestic insurgencies by military means. In fact, the Reagan Doctrine (the promise by the Reagan administration to support local counter-revolutionary movements against communist governments) had begun to make victory even more elusive. Demands for more military assistance to counter American aid threatened to increase both the costs of Soviet Third World policy and the danger of direct Soviet involvement in local conflicts. According to one commentator, ‘the most important catalyst…of the sharp deterioration in Soviet-American


relations in the late 1970s and early 1980s…was the development of regional crises’.22 Another writer maintained that ‘military aid to a number of regimes in the Third World merely proved an additional economic burden and further undermined the country’s reputation’.23 Conflicts that were previously thought to be part of the national liberation struggle and which, therefore, deserved socialist support, began to be classified as regional conflicts. Moreover, a more sophisticated appreciation of the tribal, ethnic, nationalist and religious causes of conflict replaced the previous rather simplistic division into ‘good’ revolutionary and ‘evil’ counter-revolutionary forces.24 In the realm of practice, pressure was brought to bear on Third World client regimes to negotiate peaceful solutions to their conflicts by adopting policies of ‘national reconciliation’ (which usually meant agreeing to share power with the leaders of insurgent movements).25 In China, a less powerful power than the Soviet Union, but one with an equally clear sense of international status, the reform of ideology affecting attitudes towards international security could be said to have started earlier. And yet, as one might expect, China’s specific conditions—most notably because of the Soviet Union on its border—meant that its reformed ideology did not follow the same course as the Soviet Union. For one thing, openness to the West was first built on the basis of closure to the Soviet Union. More complete openness, including to the Soviet Union, only came in a later phase of reform of foreign policy ideology. In China by 1970 the transformative ambitions of the Cultural Revolution and its radical line on the need for class struggle were abandoned, and border conflicts with the Soviet Union had demonstrated that China’s relations with the rest of the world required serious and realistic rethinking. The Soviet Union, which had been the revisionist power, and linked to revisionism at home in China, was now seen primarily as a more conventional military threat without the perilous links to Chinese domestic politics. As China improved relations with the capitalist world on an anti-Soviet basis, it was hard to sustain a class-based analysis of the changes in Chinese foreign policy. Most of the New Year’s Message of 1970 was devoted to world affairs26 and the abandonment of leftist Wunderglaube in revolutionary transformation was signalled by its prominent use of only part of a Mao quotation which had been the banner quotation of the 1969 Message. The italicized part is dropped in 1970: The next 50 to 100 years or so, beginning from now, will be a great era of radical change in the social system throughout the world, an earth-shaking era without equal in any previous historical period. Living in such an era, me must be prepared to engage in great struggles which will have many features different in form from those of the past.27


World upheaval without leftist transformation inspired by China was a more sober prospect. Although US imperialism had ‘tumbled down from its zenith’ and Soviet social imperialism was ‘heading for total bankruptcy at an accelerated pace’, China still considered world war a realistic possibility in January 1970 and pledged that China and the PLA would do their parts. On 20 May 1970 Chairman Mao himself struck a more optimistic note in a statement supporting Norodom Sihanouk against the recently established Lon Nol regime. ‘The danger of a new world war still exists, and the people of all countries must get prepared. But revolution is the main trend in the world today.’28 Along with Mao’s remark that ‘a weak nation can defeat a strong, a small nation can defeat a big’,29 the message was that pragmatism rather than paranoia would govern China’s adjustment to the post-Cultural Revolutionary world, and that its continued support of revolutionary movements would be tempered by the convenient optimism that they could and should win their own revolutions. Mao’s statement was constantly quoted over the next few years to justify pragmatic policy moves which repaired and greatly extended China’s official and unofficial contact with the rest of the world. It is clear that China’s change in foreign policy ideology in the early 1970s was motivated by a sense of danger. The border skirmishes with the Soviet Union were the most obvious sign, but they also highlighted the more serious danger of a superpower alliance to contain China. Moreover, the possibility of a remilitarization of Japan in alliance with the United States was of itself a sufficient inducement to diplomatic activity. Given China’s judgement that the United States had lost the war in Vietnam, it was dangerous for China if the United States premised its post-Vietnam diplomacy on hostility toward China. Fortunately, the imaginative opportunism of Nixon and Kissinger met the apprehensive pragmatism of Mao and Zhou. Although the shift in foreign policy ideology which lay behind the new openness in the 1970s was based on the tacit acknowledgement of the failure of the Cultural Revolution, it remained premised on the eventual success of Third World revolutionary movements and on the ultimate failure of imperialisms and hegemonisms of all sorts. Although one might not expect the notion that small countries can defeat big ones to be comforting to the largest country in the world, it justified a new world role for China as leader of the Third World. Certainly China had made impressive efforts in this direction before the Cultural Revolution, most notably at the Bandung Conference in 1955, but by the 1970s China was ‘within the system’ at the UN. China still had friends and enemies, but it had relations with its enemies. The major statement of the new orthodoxy of this first phase of reform was Deng Xiaoping’s speech at the UN in 1974 on the ‘theory of the three worlds’. In contrast to Lin Biao’s 1965 speech on people’s war,30 it was a theory of world alignment, but not a call for world revolution. China now saw itself as part of the


Third World which, in cooperation with the developed world of Europe (minus the Soviet Union) and Japan could take on the First World of the two superpowers. Indeed, the Albanians later cited this speech as a prime example of Chinese revisionism which caused their break from China. In this framework China became a model Third World country struggling against the hegemonism of the superpowers (and also against regional hegemonists like India and later Vietnam) while uniting with the middle range countries such as in Europe. However, even as early as 1972 the three world framework did not really fit Chinese foreign policy. China had decided that the Soviet Union was the real threat, the principal contradiction, because the United States had broken its teeth on Vietnam while Soviet social imperialism was still expanding. This justified seizing whatever opportunities presented themselves for expanding relations with the West and gave China a special link with anti-communist right-wing elements. The anti-Soviet excitement reached its height in 1978 when China felt itself encircled by the Soviet Union on one side and Vietnam on the other. Xu Xiangqian’s Army Day speech of 1978 was perhaps the strongest statement of the anti-Soviet position.31 He claimed that war with the Soviet Union was inevitable, the only question was when and under what circumstances. Anyone hoping for world peace was simply deluding themselves. Therefore it was necessary to organize an alliance of all possible forces against the Soviet Union. The idea of an anti-Soviet world united front was an outcome of complex ideological strands. First, it was consistent with the attitude of world tension and struggle characteristic of the Cultural Revolution. The revisionist enemy remained the same. Secondly, the border clashes of 1969 were a sobering experience, and it was a realistic assessment that, given the United States’ failure in Vietnam, the Soviet Union was the more likely threat. Third, it gave a much brighter green light to collaboration with the United States than did the three worlds theory by itself. United front logic casts its net as wide as possibly and mutes its criticism of allies. By 1982 China had adjusted its international ideology to one based on national competition within a stable international framework and to an equidistant relationship with the superpowers. Openness, both domestic and foreign, is much more comfortable with the assumption of peace than it is with the assumption of war. War requires mobilization and centralization, and its logic of alliances is a narrow one. Were it not for the revivification of the image of Soviet imperialism by the invasion of Afghanistan, the orthodoxy of the antiSoviet alliance would have undoubtedly faded much faster. As it was, SinoSoviet normalization was held up until 1989 by the ‘three obstacles’32 but the shift to a foreign policy based on effective neutrality between the superpowers was completed by 1982.33 By the time Deng Xiaoping coined the term ‘China’s second revolution’ in 1985, China’s wealth and power was supposed to contribute to world peace rather than world victory.


The strength to check war will increase greatly if China attains its development target by the end of the century. When, in another 30 to 50 years, China approaches the standard of the developed countries, it will be more difficult for war to break out: Not, of course, quite impossible, but more difficult…China, pursuing an independent foreign policy, is unattached to any group and unlinked strategically with any country. Chinese development helps the people of the world.34 Although Deng’s smugness is almost as disquieting as the content of his message is reassuring, it had come a long way from 1978 condemnations of the dream of world peace. In the 1980s even disarmament became a major aspect of Chinese foreign policy. The key characteristic of the reform of Chinese foreign policy ideology was non-alignment. Equidistance with the superpowers is the most important corollary, but non-alignment also implies that China does not build regional blocs of allies. China’s pattern of alliances is an interesting one, and it certainly includes a number of old friends and old enemies. But in general China has not used its increasing clout to deal ever more punishing blows to its enemies. To take the most difficult example, although Vietnam was threatened with ‘a second lesson’ and China supported the Khmer Rouge, its hostile activities were usually linked to Vietnamese actions, and in recent years relations have improved significantly. Indeed, China and the Soviet Union have not been alone in having to reform their ideology dealing with smaller states. Vietnam stands out as a special case of a smaller communist state which had occupied a neighbour partly in pursuit of national security. As Vietnam reformed its foreign policy ideology, as in the case of the Soviet Union, it reassessed key elements of security. The result was a more open Vietnamese ideology, but one that was open in distinctive ways. Vietnam backed into reform in 1986 by learning, slowly and painfully, the limits of victory in both domestic and international realms. The domestic process of decontrol and state retreat began of necessity in 1980 and proceeded in a zigzag until the Sixth Party Congress in 1986. In foreign policy, the announcement of unilateral withdrawal from Cambodia was a decisive step, but it could still have led to a different outcome until Vietnam decided that it must rely on a foreign policy of peace and openness, a decision that can be dated from 1986. Vietnam was no longer insistent on setting its own terms for openness. Increasingly, it began to search for terms acceptable to a hostile and rather uninterested world. Vietnam’s self-consciousness gradually descended from that of revolutionary victor to that of a poor, isolated nation in need of peace, friends and help. It gradually realized that it had become ‘independent, all too independent.’


At the global level, Vietnam’s foreign policy ideology had to adjust from revolutionary optimism to post-revolutionary realism. The defeat of the United States did not mean a victory for socialism. Siding with the Soviet Union had the effect of putting Vietnam in an isolated, hostile and dependent situation. And with the change in Soviet global ideology announced at Vladivostok on 28 July 1986, the Vietnamese had no choice but to praise the Soviet peace initiative and to adjust their own policies accordingly. The unadmitted but evident tensions between the Soviet Union and Vietnam concerning Cambodian policy and the utilization of Soviet aid to Vietnam must have been sobering for Vietnam’s world perspective. On the brighter side, Soviet peace efforts lowered the derivative hostility of the US and China toward Vietnam as a Soviet client. For other smaller communist states, the pressures for reform also had a great deal to do with changes in pressure from the great powers. Hungary had perhaps the longest experience of any smaller state in seeking reforms of ideology. After 1956, for six years the key aim of Hungarian foreign policy was to ‘normalize’ its international position by getting the ‘Hungarian question’ removed from the UN agenda and by gaining readmission to UN membership. This was achieved in 1962, a year which in many respects was a watershed in Hungarian politics, arguably the starting point of ‘Kadarism’ proper. Up to that time, Hungarian politics were totally dominated by the Soviet Union, with Soviet ‘advisers’ running the apparatus of Party and state, the Party itself having collapsed in 1956 and having to be slowly and painfully rebuilt thereafter from a base comprising less than 5 per cent of the original membership, most of whom inevitably were rigid Stalinists. But by 1962, the domestic situation was deemed to have been ‘consolidated’. Khrushchev gave his backing to Kadar for a change of tack. The change was summed up by Kadar’s well-known slogan, enunciated at the VIII Congress of the HSWP in that year, ‘He who is not against us is with us’. The conciliatory tone of this had implications both for domestic and international policy. ‘Peaceful coexistence’ of the Hungarian communist regime with its own population and with the wider international society was the order of the day. The concept of ‘peaceful coexistence’ was characteristically Khrushchevite. Kadar was thus in the fortunate position at this time of being able to harmonize his preferred flexible, pragmatic reformist course in domestic politics with loyalty to the international line set by the Soviet Union. After the removal of Khrushchev, this juggling act became more complicated, but until 1968, the absorption of the Soviet Union in its own internal political struggles allowed enough room for manoeuvre in Eastern Europe. Yet when the Czech Communist Party thought it was enough simply to assure the Soviet Union of the dominant position of the Party, in fact they were taking ideology too seriously in dealing with the Soviet Union. As Kadar asked Dubcek in exasperation immediately before the Soviet intervention in August 1968: ‘Do you really not know the kind of people you’re dealing with?’35 Ultimately, it was


not the overt tenets of socialist ideology that guided Soviet policy but great power interests. Kadar appreciated this not only because of his own country’s bitterly illuminating experience, but also because of his own mental make-up, which was profoundly un-ideological in the sense that he was completely immune to the type of intellectual enthusiasm which had spawned both the Stalinist fanaticism of Rakosi and the naive socialist revivalism of both Imre Nagy and the Czech reform communists. He accepted the basic tenets of Soviet orthodoxy without question, and was simply not interested in developing or ‘renewing’ them, nor was he troubled by their internal inconsistencies. There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of Kadar’s commitment to ‘socialism’, but his understanding of the content of this concept seems to have been very broad and general. On the one hand, it meant for him the realization of material welfare, security and a steadily rising level of consumption for the mass of the people. On the other, as he frequently repeated, it was inseparable from loyalty to the Soviet Union. The characterization of Kadar as the quintessential ‘Khrushchevite’ is thus very appropriate.36 It is not the case that policy-making under Kadar abandoned ideology and became guided by wholly pragmatic considerations—the limits of Kadar’s own pragmatism and ideological flexibility were fully exposed in the 1980s. In fact, remarkably little development of the content of the ideology took place under Kadar. What did occur was the unspoken shift of ideological orthodoxy from centre stage. It was something that could be, if not dropped, at least laid aside when the occasion demanded, and when this served some practical benefit. The ‘natural’ or logical foreign policy ideology of Kadarism seems to have been ‘peaceful coexistence’ and later détente. But until the beginning of the 1980s, when Kadar’s grip on the HSWP, and the whole edifice of the ‘Kadar compromise’ in Hungarian politics, began to come adrift, this policy was never pursued in opposition to the prevailing foreign policy line of the Soviet Union. Although clearly there are parallels and connections between the reformism of domestic policy and the pursuit of international détente, it would be misleading in the Hungarian case to explain the coincidence of the two in the 1970s in terms of a profound and coherent ideological linkage. Foreign policy ideology, at least in its orthodox sense under Kadar, was merely the reflection of Soviet foreign policy ideology at any given time, and had no genuine life or role of its own. In fact, the dissonance between the relatively imaginative domestic course and the subservience of foreign policy was frequently remarked in the 1970s. The contrast was often made with Romania, which combined the most primitive form of ‘personality cult’ with the most adventurous and independent foreign policy.37 The implication was that absolute external conformity was the price to be paid for the domestic reformism. In fact, it was not such a high price, since it is not clear either that Kadar wanted to break out in a divergent direction in foreign policy


anyway, or that there was much that could have been gained for Hungary had he done so. By the early 1980s, and following changes in middle-level leadership, there were real signs of a radical break from the past Kadarist position rather than a linear development of it. As outlined by the new leader of the HSWP Central Committee for International Affairs, Matyas Szuros, the profile of ideology was raised and it ceased to be a mere passive copying of the Soviet line. It was not just a matter of a further shift in the balance between ideology and pragmatism, but an attempt to change the content of the ideology itself. Szuros revived the notion, buried since 1956, of ‘national interest’ as a factor in foreign policy making.38 Despite the Brezhnev doctrine, practical considerations had forced the grudging acceptance that ‘national specifics’ had to be taken into account in ‘building socialism’, i.e. in domestic policy (which had allowed scope for the partial survival of the Hungarian economic reform), but the assertion of differing interests among socialist countries in their dealings with the outside world was a bold new departure. In defining Hungary’s ‘specific interests’, Szuros in fact referred to factors which hitherto had been passed over as not relevant or at most secondary and derivative in significance in Marxist-Leninist ideology: history, size and geography.39 The terms in which Szuros discussed these factors implied not only that Hungary might have enduring interests in relations with states outside the socialist bloc, but also that there could be a real conflict of interests in foreign policy among socialist states. The key factor for Hungary was not so much its ‘class position’ as its small size and Central European position: in a time of increasing international tension, ‘the peoples of small countries feel increasingly at the mercy of enormous, destructive forces [implying the Soviet Union, as much as the ‘imperialists’] that are beyond their control’.40 Such countries as Hungary, Szuros argued, had a particular mission in contemporary world affairs: Concurrently with the decisive weight of the Great Powers the role of small countries is growing in the bridging over of differences, in the bringing about of rational, mutually acceptable compromises, and in general, in ensuring the continuity of the East-West dialogue which is of vital importance to everybody.41 The hierarchical subordination of the international over the national, characteristic of the Cold War period of the 1950s, had to give way to a new understanding of the international interest as ‘a sort of common denominator of the national interests, which necessarily includes also the fundamental interests of the participating socialist countries’.42 This ideological revision parallels in an interesting way the revision of the ideological concept of the ‘social interest’ in socialism which took place in Hungary and Czechoslovakia in the 1960s to


accompany and legitimate market-type reforms.43 In both cases, what has taken place is a replacement of the collectivist notion of the common (social or socialistbloc) interest as something separate from and superior to individual/national interests with a more liberal or pluralistic notion of the common interest as little more than the sum of the parts or the lowest common denominator. Szuros’s attempt to exploit the inherent ambiguity of the Marxist-Leninist position on the national/international question sought space within the rigid limits of bloc politics in the era of Soviet gerontocracy for the pursuit of reform and the continuation of relations with the West, which had become identified in Hungary with the ‘national interest’. In the process, the aim was also to build genuine legitimacy for the regime and thus enhance the power and authority of the state at a time of acute and deepening economic and political crisis. The ideological revisions undertaken bear many parallels with the general drift of Imre Nagy’s own thinking in 1955, when he wrote ‘In Defence of the New Course’. They contain the same inherent contradiction of trying to reconcile Hungarian national interests with its continued membership of the socialist bloc, which implied a limit on free choice by the people of both the domestic regime and international commitments. Perhaps the most difficult case of reform in foreign policy ideology was that of the GDR. As an ‘unnatural’ state its dependence on the Soviet Union was greater than most. But particularly because it was on the front line with NATO, it felt particularly sensitive when détente was either suddenly encouraged or reversed. To that extent it had a tacit alliance with Hungary, especially in 1983–4, favouring a less hostile relationship with the West. Of course, Hungary and the GDR had different motives for their views, even though the stated ideology tended, at least for a time, to look similar. The process of rethinking the foreign policy strategy and ideology of the SED began around 1981–3. This was an arduous and complicated task, and in this period, East German foreign policy ideology was fraught with contradictions. By 1983, however, it was clear that the SED was articulating a set of foreign policy themes which were at variance with official thinking in Moscow. Many of these themes—such as the emphasis on the need for dialogue in the face of the threat of nuclear annihilation—were subsequently to figure prominently in Mikhail Gorbachev’s ‘new political thinking’. In this remarkable period from the early to mid-1980s, therefore, the East Germans played a pioneering role in the reform of foreign policy ideology within the Warsaw Pact. The external catalyst for this unexpected ideological innovation by the SED was the deteriorating security situation in Europe in the early 1980s, and the consequent increase in fears of war—especially nuclear war. At the Tenth SED Party Congress in 1981, it was merely noted that in the face of growing EastWest conflict, ‘new, additional efforts are required’.44 By 1982, it was the view of Honecker that the existence of nuclear weapons had effectively negated


Clausewitz’s axiom that ‘war was a continuation of politics by other means’.45 The concern with the implications of nuclear weapons became the ‘conceptual anchor of [the SED’s] foreign-policy reorientation, and it gave expression to this in its readiness to adopt the “new thinking”’.46 This also led to the most significant divergence with Soviet foreign policy, certainly in the Honecker period, if not in the whole history of the GDR.47 Following the INF deployments, the SED leadership outlined a policy of ‘damage-limitation’ (Schadensbegrenzung) at the Seventh Plenary Session of the Central Committee in November 1983. Honecker made clear East Germany’s displeasure at the Soviet ‘counter-deployments’ in both the GDR and Czechoslovakia, which he declared ‘were unavoidable if we wish to prevent the USA acquiring strategic military superiority’, but which ‘are no great cause for jubilation in our country’. He also made an implicit criticism of the Soviet walkout from the Geneva INF talks by insisting that, ‘We support the exploitation of all negotiating opportunities that may lead to the halting of the arms race and to the transition to disarmament, particularly in the nuclear field’.48 The SED’s disquiet with the course of Soviet foreign policy in the ‘Second Cold War’ led the East German leadership to formulate—for the first time—the specific security interests of the GDR, and to undertake a significant (albeit ambiguous and at times contradictory) process of ideological reform in the foreign policy sphere. The heart of the SED’s reform was a reconsideration of the relationship between class and ‘all-human’ interests. The SED had long argued that the fundamental division in world politics was between the peace-loving socialist camp and the aggressive imperialist countries.49 At the same time, the East German leadership throughout the 1970s insisted that strengthening the military power of the Warsaw Pact was the only secure way to prevent war. In 1984, there were growing indications that the SED was willing to accept the notion of ‘common security’, which was formally endorsed by the Party in 1985.50 This in turn led to a reconsideration of the notion of ‘parity’ and ‘military force’. Whereas the GDR military and political establishment had previously rejected the notion of ‘parity’ as an imperialist deceit, by the mid-1980s the political leadership had firmly endorsed the notion of combining parity with disarmament51 (although the GDR military establishment fought a rearguard action against the more radical implications of this change of perception, arguing that the military strength of the Warsaw Pact was an ‘indispensable precondition for any future deflection of imperialist wars of aggression’52). The re-evaluation of the question of nuclear weapons and the risk of atomic annihilation which the SED undertook between 1981 and 1983 implied that the key assumption underpinning the ‘peaceful coexistence’ of the 1970s—namely that the imperialist powers could be coerced into peaceful behaviour only by the growing military might of the socialist community and the changing


international correlation of forces—was no longer valid. Instead, it was suggested that there was a common, all-human interest in preventing nuclear war which transcended class interests. It also implied a widening of the gap between the struggle for peace and the struggle for socialism—particularly as the ‘imperialist class enemy’ was now a potential candidate for ‘security partnership’ in a ‘Coalition for Common Sense and Realism’ with the SED. This, of course, was difficult for some in the SED leadership to accept, because it struck at the very self-identity and ideological justification of the East German state—a state which was lacking in national or democratic legitimacy, and which could only justify its existence by reference to the tenets of Marxism-Leninism and the needs of the international class struggle. The SED in the early 1980s, along with Hungary, began to argue that smalland medium-sized states like the GDR had a particular role to play in facilitating East-West dialogue at a time of superpower tension. In a much-publicized dispute in 1983–4, the GDR found itself in the unfamiliar role of being in a tacit alliance with Hungary against the Soviet Union, which was supported by Czechoslovakia and Poland.53 The background to this dispute was the desire by Erich Honecker to visit the FRG in 1984, as part of the SED’s policy of encouraging East-West dialogue.54 Although the GDR was forced to cancel the visit, this was not before East German ideologues had stressed the distinctive role that small states could and should make to ‘peaceful coexistence’ in Europe. This was linked to another theoretical innovation in the mid-1980s—the new emphasis on the dialectic between national and international interests in the socialist community. Also a great deal of energy was expended at East German foreign policy thinktanks trying to put flesh on the bones of the concept of the ‘Common European Home’. Eventually the East Germans used the concept to reinforce their calls for nuclear disarmament, international dialogue and East-West cooperation.55 Nevertheless, East German concepts of the ‘Common European Home’ faced a major problem in terms of the ideological coherence of Marxism-Leninism. The stress on a common pan-European identity and common European interests weakened the political and theoretical credibility of the SED’s manichean view of a bipolar Europe riven by irreconcilable class differences. Similarly, calls for ‘system-crossing cooperation’ lacked credibility given the SED’s oft-repeated insistence on the necessity for the Berlin Wall and the continued physical division of Europe. And yet, on balance and particularly between 1983 and 1985, the SED found itself, along with Hungary, in the unexpected position of being in the vanguard of the ‘new thinking’ that was gaining ground in the Soviet Union and other parts of the ‘world socialist community’. With Gorbachev’s accession to power in March 1985 and the subsequent adoption by the CPSU leadership of the ‘new political thinking’, there was a period from about 1985 to 1987 when Soviet and


East German foreign policy thinking converged on several issues—around positions formerly propounded by the SED. This happy convergence of Soviet and GDR interests—especially in terms of Europapolitik—reached its apogee in September 1987 with Honecker’s long-awaited visit to the FRG. At the same time, the reform of East German foreign policy ideology reached its highpoint in August 1987, with the publication of the Joint SPD-SED Paper, ‘Conflicting Ideologies and Common Security’.56 Of great significance were the two statements that both systems were (a) ‘capable of reform’ (reformfähig), and (b) ‘capable of peace’ (friedensfähig). The first claim had all sorts of implications for the traditional communist notion of class struggle and the nature of ‘monopoly capitalism’. The second struck at the very core of Lenin’s theory of imperialism, which was seen as inherently aggressive, militaristic and expansionist.57 It is therefore not surprising that shortly after the publication of this Joint Paper, a series of counter-attacks began, culminating in a conservative retrenchment which was formally endorsed by the leadership at the fateful Seventh Central Committee Plenum in November 1988. In November 1988, the Central Committee at its Seventh Plenum declared in favour of the traditional conception of foreign policy ideology.58 This maintained the centrality of the class struggle in international politics. In his report from the Politburo to the Central Committee, General-Secretary Honecker declared that the SED was guided exclusively by the ‘socialist class standpoint’ in both external and internal matters. Moreover, the ‘class content’ of peaceful coexistence remained as valid as before, and illusions to the contrary were not only foolish but dangerous: ‘Anyone lulling himself into this dream will one day be rudely awakened’. With these comments, Honecker on behalf of the Central Committee rejected one of the central tenets of the ‘new political thinking’ which was now being enthusiastically championed by the Gorbachev-Shevardnadze team in Moscow. By according such priority to the class struggle as the ‘main driving-force of world events’, Honecker was reversing much of the thrust of the SED’s ideological innovations in the early and mid-1980s. And yet this reversal in the GDR, when reform of the foreign policy ideology of national security was still developing in the Soviet Union, Hungary, China and Vietnam, merely highlighted the isolation of the GDR. Indeed, it was a key commonality in the reform of foreign policy ideology that there be a move away from a narrow concern with class struggle and a wider acceptance of the need for international security. Of course, the GDR’s change, as was the case of the policy of no reform in North Korea, had most to do with the division of Germany and Korea which set them apart as special states. To that extent at least it is important to note that even those states that continued to reform their foreign policy ideology, did so in distinctive ways. Much the same can be said for the ‘pattern’ of reform of foreign policy ideology in the sphere of development and economic interdependence.


Development and interdependence The acceptance of the interdependence of security seemed have some connections to the acceptance of the interdependence of economic prosperity. Such was the nature of ideology that reform was ‘contagious’. And yet the specific way in which this ideology was reformed depended to a large extent on the distinctive features of the states concerned. For example, the difficulty of defeating insurgencies by military means and the cost of arming socialist-oriented governments only partly explain the new political thinking in the Soviet Union about the Third World. The economic predicament of Soviet Third World clients was another important reason for redefining their conflicts as regional conflicts rather than examples of the national liberation and anti-imperialist struggle. For even if the conflicts could be won, their economic and political development from socialist orientation to socialism seemed increasingly unlikely. Indeed, some Soviet academics began reassessing the economic situation of Soviet Third World allies long before the new political thinking came into practice.60 By the end of the 1970s the economic situation of socialist-oriented states was, in many cases, a great deal worse than that of capitalist Third World states. Moreover, the declining Soviet economy was in no condition to offer the kind of aid that would make the establishment of full socialism possible. Soviet theorists became rather stern in their advice that economic development had to depend more upon local policies and efforts than upon aid.61 But capitalism was still blamed by many for the economic plight of the developing countries. In other words, most theorists still believed that capitalist exploitation exacerbated underdevelopment and that properly applied socialist policies would foster economic development. But eventually, however, Soviet theorists changed their minds and said that they had ‘been deceived by [their] excessive optimism that the socialist model of development would spread throughout the developing countries and [their] overestimation of their ability to make progress on a non-capitalist path’.62 Previous work on socialist orientation was criticized.63 The new thinkers came to believe that socialist orientation was probably not universally applicable to Third World states. The possibility that developing states could avoid the capitalist stage of development if they received sufficient socialist aid was then discounted. Modernization and economic development were recognized to be complex global problems defying doctrinaire solutions.64 Soviet policy makers wanted to extend their economic relations with Third World states irrespective of which path of development they had chosen. But the main criterion, they maintained, should be that those relations are mutually advantageous and that required, ‘first and foremost, solvent partners or partners that have resources and products we need’.65 The prerequisite was an improvement in the quality of Soviet Third World studies.66


The recognition of the complexity of economic development in the Third World coincided with a new preoccupation with the concept of interdependence and the global predicaments that face all humankind. The concept of interdependence was one of the major innovations of the new political thinking (although it has a long history in Western international relations theory). It was used by Soviet policy-makers and theorists to cover a number of separate phenomena. It was, for example, one of the terms employed to describe the tendency both of local conflict to spread geographically and of problems in one sphere to spill over into other spheres. It was also used to characterize the indivisibility of security. With regard to economics, interdependence referred to the connections between national economies.67 But economic connections across national borders occurred not only between states within the same social-economic system. They also increasingly tended to occur across the divide between the two systems. And that meant that interdependence was a general phenomenon of the modern world economy. Most Soviet economists, therefore, came to question whether two separate international economic systems existed. Most favoured the idea that there was one international economic system to which socialist, capitalist, and socialist-oriented states, developed and developing, all belonged, whatever the differences between them.68 Finally, interdependence was the term used to explain the way many domestic problems extended beyond national frontiers and became international or global. The idea that there can be no victor in nuclear war, and that the consequences will be equally horrendous irrespective of the system in which they occur, can be traced back to Khrushchev. But the recognition that there are global problems which affect both social and political systems and, moreover, which can be caused by either system was relatively new in the Soviet Union. Until the new thinking, it was always assumed that capitalism was the cause of the major ills in the world, whether they were local or global.69 The emphasis on the other kinds of global problems that confront humankind and the recognition that individual states or groups of states cannot cope with them alone became particularly evident in Soviet writing after the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station began to emerge. One of the major challenges of our time, according to the new thinkers, was the ‘internationalization or globalization’ that has occurred in the life of society, requiring the discovery of the means to retain self-determination while at the same time ‘integrating and uniting forces to resolve global problems’.70 Other global problems which threatened ‘the immediate or gradual physical destruction of nations’ were pollution, ecological degradation and war (conventional as well as nuclear).71 Soviet theorists recognized that the concept of interdependence has long existed in Western political science and that it is reflected in the political and


economic practices of the capitalist world. But capitalist interdependence was said to be caused by the international division of labour. It was uncontrolled, asymmetric and it could lead to a type of ‘ultra-imperialism’. The new political thinkers asserted that if their version of the concept were the starting point, interdependence would be based on the recognition that all participants in international life were completely equal. It would result in a conscious attempt to ‘co-ordinate the efforts of all humankind to prevent nuclear war (and conventional war as well), to eliminate hunger, disease and ignorance, and to maintain a dynamic balance between the biosphere and the technosphere’.72 Notable amongst the many concrete plans Soviet policy-makers and theorists proposed to realize their aims of peaceful cooperation to resolve global problems was a reinvigoration of the United Nations, the formation of an international system of economic security, regular multilateral and bilateral summit meetings, an extension of the institutions and functions of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and the setting up of a similar set of institutions to deal with problems in the Asia-Pacific area. The much publicized concept of a Common European Home was largely based on the new political thinking about global problems and interdependence. The assumption behind all the proposals was that there were common human interests which facilitate the necessary cooperation.73 The idea that there are all-human interests that transcend all other interests and which must perforce take precedence meshed uneasily with the Marxist-Leninist theory of class struggle and class interests. It was clear that even in 1991 some theorists still had difficulty in rejecting the conventional view that interests were determined by class membership. Traditionally it was the conflict between class interests that was used to explain the ideological struggle in international relations.74 It was also why past theorists defined peaceful coexistence as a particular form of class struggle. Most new thinkers rejected the idea that the antagonistic relations between the two systems (which give rise to class struggle) can be separated from inter-state relations based on an acceptance of the inevitability of peaceful coexistence (for the sake of survival). They pointed out that the formula that peaceful coexistence is a form of class struggle was both theoretically flawed and politically foolish (since it confirmed all the worst suspicions of Western politicians about the insincerity of Soviet policy).75 The concept of a balance of interests was applied by Soviet theorists both to relations across the ideological divide and to those between states belonging to the same social and economic system.76 The ‘old’ political thinking about relations between socialist states was based on the idea that a new type of international relations had become established after 1945. The principle of proletarian internationalism (which determined the relations between socialist parties) had been extended to the inter-state level in the form of socialist internationalism. Socialist internationalism was defined as respect for equality,


territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty, non-interference in internal affairs, combined with fraternal mutual aid. Since all socialist states belonged to the same class, it was held that there could be no antagonistic conflict between them. And because their class interests coincided, it was assumed that their national interests would quite easily and naturally be subjugated to the international interests of the socialist system as a whole. On the occasions when this failed to occur, for example, in 1956 and 1968, it was taken for granted that domestic or foreign counter-revolution was to blame. By 1985, however, some Soviet theorists began to admit that there was a certain tension between the prevailing practice of democratic centralism within the socialist commonwealth, which implied hierarchical relations, and the principles of equality and sovereignty. In the past, it was admitted, respect for sovereignty had all too often been sacrificed to the need for unity.77 In his speech on the 70th anniversary of the October Revolution Gorbachev defined socialist internationalism as ‘unconditional and total equality, the responsibility of the ruling party for affairs in its state…, concern for the general cause of socialism, respect for one another, a serious attitude toward what has been achieved and tried out by friends, and the strict observation by all of the principles of peaceful coexistence.’78 This implied the primacy of equality over fraternal unity and also suggested a step back from the Brezhnev doctrine. By then Soviet theorists were prepared to recognize that conflicts of interests could occur between states belonging to the same class, although they still called them non-antagonistic conflicts. Soon it was acknowledged that inter-socialist conflict could be so antagonistic as to cause violence.79 It was also accepted that the ‘deformations’ caused by Stalinism and the Brezhnev period of stagnation had extended to Soviet relations with its East European allies.80 According to Alexander Bovin, the problem has always been ‘how to combine national, state interests of each individual socialist state with the interests of the whole system? How to integrate the different interests of separate socialist states?’81 His answer, like that of Gorbachev in his anniversary speech, and as we have seen in the cases of the GDR, Hungary and eventually Vietnam, was that the principles of peaceful coexistence must prevail in relations between socialist states. Of course, as we shall see even more clearly in the case of China, there was no sense in which relations between socialist states should be, or were in fact, special. It had become clear in the first couple of years of perestroika that although he advised reform to the leaders of the other East European countries, Gorbachev was not prepared to insist that they should adopt the Soviet programme. What this meant was that, in practice at least, the universality of the Soviet model was called into question (and the existence of a model was explicitly rejected by the members of the Warsaw Pact in 1989).82 On the other hand, the claim that intersocialist relations were different in type from other international relations became debatable. The absorption of the Central Committee Department for


Liaison with Communist and Workers Parties of Socialist Countries into the International Department in September 1988 seemed symbolic of the fact that Soviet relations with socialist states would now be based on the same principles as relations with other kinds of state. The events of 1989, and their acceptance by the Soviet Union, confirmed that this was, indeed, the case. In the Chinese case, the recognition of the new interdependence, especially in economic terms, came much earlier and evolved in a distinctive manner. There was almost a fourfold increase in China’s foreign trade between 1968 and 1977, roughly the same percentage increase as between 1978 and 1987.83 But beginning in 1978 there was a new confidence about the process of openness to the international system and the need to become interdependent with the international economy, especially but not exclusively towards the market economies of the West. The world market and the international community began to be considered a vital part of China’s plans for modernization, China’s chief task. Modernization and openness were linked in spirit and in the stream of political consciousness in 1978, and they came to be linked in orthodoxy. The usefulness of the West to China’s search for wealth and power as well as the threat posed by Western influence to China’s cultural and political identity displaced the Maoist concern with the struggle against imperialism and the isolation of the key enemy. China’s concerns shifted from world revolutionary struggle to the problem of how to use foreign things for their utility while preserving the ‘Chinese essence’. The gradual development of the new economic openness as orthodoxy was due primarily to two factors. First, the overwhelmingly practical and economic character of the reforms avoided reorientations of orthodoxy under the slogan, ‘shishi qiu shi’ (seek truth from facts). The slogan is an old one, and used by Mao at one time, but Deng Xiaoping reintroduced it in June 1978 to criticize the dead hand of dogmatism. Dogmatism would be a dead hand because many of the domestic and international policies with which the reformers were experimenting could not easily be explained in Marxism-Leninist terms, much less Maoist practice. Secondly, there was a great complementarity between the orientations of the 1970s and 1980s phases of Chinese reform of foreign policy ideology. China’s anti-Soviet posture made normalization with the United States easier, and a more wealthy and prosperous China would be more effective in leading the world crusade against social imperialism. Normalization with the United States in December 1978 was a victory from both perspectives. In the context of the conflict with Vietnam, which was essentially an anti-Soviet crisis in China’s view, it helped isolate Vietnam and strengthen China. In the context of global openness, it broke the remaining logjam hampering China’s interchange with the non-communist world.


The chief characteristic of the new phase of openness for foreign policy ideology in the mid-1980s was economic opportunism. Although considerations of budget and balance of trade have led to cycles of growth followed by restraint, the basic pattern of development of China’s participation in the world economy consistently increased in scope, complexity and sophistication. At no point was a dogmatic line drawn and an opportunity for openness foregone. Moreover, participation in the world economy became an integral part of China’s overall plans for development, a fact perhaps best illustrated by the coastal cities plan of Zhao Ziyang. Unlike the Soviet case where we have seen careful and cautious debates about openness and the relationship to the international market economy preceding any change in policy, China moved much more swiftly and easily to embrace economic interdependence. To be sure, China remained careful about safeguarding its national interest, but it never confused that with the interests of socialist states and certainly not with a so-called socialist community. A related characteristic of Chinese reform of foreign policy ideology was the persistent attempt to claim Third World leadership. As Deng put it in 1984, ‘China will always belong to the Third World, which is the foundation of our foreign policy.’84 Of course, as Lowell Dittmer demonstrates, the claim to Third World leadership is as old as the People’s Republic of China. The current form of this claim is not revolutionary, but it does pose some challenges to the superpowers and it suggests that China is not simply prepared to accept the international economy as it is without making changes.85 The new international economic order proposed by Zhao Ziyang in 1981 is based on the thesis that the prosperity of the developed world was founded in the past on the impoverishment of the underdeveloped world.86 However, he did not argue for international class struggle or assume that the developed world could not redress the imbalance. The five principles for the new international economic order were designed to be feasible for existing governments and international organizations. They presumed peace rather than revolution. Similarly, the new international political order was essentially a reiteration of the ‘five principles of peaceful coexistence’ first proposed at the Bandung Conference of 1955. As Zhao indicated in November 1988, ‘reform and opening up to the outside world are general and long-term principles that will last for dozens or even a hundred years. These policies and principles will never alter because of partial and temporary political and economic changes.’87 The commitment to openness was reaffirmed by Deng Xiaoping in his post Tiananmen speech of 9 June 1989, and by Chinese foreign policy since then.88 While Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy remained the fundamental limit to openness in the first phase of reform, the fundamental constraint of the second phase has been the fear that openness would lead to the Westernization of China and the loss of China’s specific character. Deng Xiaoping’s statement on foreign relations


at the Twelfth National Congress of the CCP in 1982 well expresses the policy tension which has characterized the 1980s. In carrying out our modernization program we must proceed from Chinese realities. Both in revolution and in construction, we should also learn from foreign countries and draw on their experience. But the mechanical copying of foreign experiences and models will get us nowhere…China’s affairs should be run according to China’s specific conditions and by the Chinese people themselves. Independence and self-reliance have always been and will always be our basic stand. While we Chinese people value our friendship and cooperation with other countries and other peoples, we value even more our hard-won independence and sovereign rights. No foreign country should expect China to be its vassal, nor should it expect China to accept anything harmful to China’s interests. We will unswervingly follow a policy of opening to the outside world and actively increase exchanges with foreign countries on the basis of equality and mutual benefit. At the same time, we will keep clear heads, firmly resist corruption by decadent ideas from abroad and never permit the bourgeois way of life to spread in our country.’89 In this passage Deng expresses the tension between international openness and national identity, but in a framework closely analogous to Zhang Zidong’s formulation of a hundred years earlier, ‘things Chinese for essence, things foreign for utility’. It is a very commonsensical position between two extremes; it would be strange to want Chinese culture to be overwhelmed by foreign things, or to shun useful things simply because they are foreign. But there is also something self-contradictory and unstable in the formula, somewhat analogous to Mao’s old leftist formula of ‘grasp revolution and promote production’. The formula does not give clear guidance about how to cope with the innumerable trade-offs encountered in practical life, and it reserves for the party the possibility of a redefinition or reversal of line. In other words, it is a restrictive and yet pragmatic formula which leads to restricted and yet pragmatic openness. In a similar way, although at a different time than in China, the shift in Vietnamese foreign policy was driven by practical necessity rather than by ideology, and therefore the orthodoxy provides a poor record or explanation of the change. For example, the possibility of joint ventures with foreign companies was approved as early as 1974,90 while the old-style analysis of the global situation in terms of the struggle against imperialism continues to this day. Indeed, the strength of the old ideology is best shown in Vietnam’s shock at developments in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in 1989. In theory, and with some degree of sincerity, Vietnam has always been in favour of peace and international cooperation. The door may not have been open, but it has never


been locked from the Vietnamese side as it had been in China during the Cultural Revolution. But in the 1980s the Vietnamese increasingly felt the need to push the door open by making concessions and initiatives intended to remove the hostilities, doubts and hesitations of potential partners. Since the Sixth Party Congress in 1986 Vietnam has committed itself to overcoming the isolation imposed by the West. Besides adjusting its policy towards Cambodia, Vietnam has tried hard to attract foreign investment and to work with international organizations in restructuring its national economy. The Foreign Investment Law of 1989 was written by Nguyen Xuan Oanh, a Harvardtrained economist and former minister in the Saigon regime, and it was designed to be the most liberal investment law in South-East Asia. Studies by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank gave Vietnam high marks for its efforts, and all this at a time when the sharp reduction in Soviet aid made Hanoi’s task all the more difficult. Hungary, with its longer history of opening to the international economy, suggests even more vividly the strict limits on the freedom of manoeuvre of smaller states seeking to reform their foreign policy ideology. In the Hungarian case, the reforms of ideology began much earlier and although in Kadar’s earlier years in power, a pragmatic attitude to economic interdependence was adopted, Kadar was perfectly able to appreciate that politicians representing different social systems might do business with each other, notwithstanding their ideological differences, if only good sense and reasonableness were present. It is thus not so much that Kadar was a non-ideological pragmatist as that he had an incoherent, inconsistent, essentially ad hoc combination of ideology and pragmatism. The 1970s were the decade of détente, which suited Hungarian interests very well, as it did most of the rest of Eastern Europe. The stabilization of East-West relations increased the East Europeans’ room for manoeuvre and opened up advantageous economic opportunities, with access to Western technology and credits. The breakdown of détente with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the end of 1979 and the Polish crisis of 1980–1 coincided, for Hungary, with the economic crisis and the dawning recognition of the disastrous cost of halting the economic reform in the mid-1970s. For the first time there emerged a clear and unavoidable conflict between following the Soviet line in international affairs, that is, ideological loyalty, and the Hungarian national economic interest, which by now consisted above all in maintaining good relations with the West, to which the country was even more indebted, on a per capita basis, than Poland. The Hungarian decision in 1981 to apply for membership in the IMF and the World Bank signalled the importance of the latter, and the entry into full IMF membership in 1982, after martial law in Poland, was the first sign of Hungarian willingness to pursue this interest even against the prevailing ideology and tendencies in bloc foreign policy. That this move would require serious reconsideration of foreign policy ideology and the application of some


intellectual effort in this hitherto neglected field was obvious. Hungary’s economic weakness, indebtedness and heavy dependence on imports of energy and raw materials gave it an additional interest in maintaining contacts with the West even in a time of East-West tension. The unstated point was that the Soviet Union, which in 1982 had cut back energy deliveries to Eastern Europe by 10 per cent, could no longer be relied on to cover all the country’s needs. But specific historical factors were also brought into play, most notably the sense of a thousand years of Hungary’s struggle to survive and the legacy of ‘specific historic bonds and family relations’ with countries such as Austria, Turkey, Poland, both Germanies and Finland.92 By contrast, references to Hungary’s membership of the socialist bloc as the ‘cornerstone’ of its foreign policy had the familiar, dead ring of ritual repetition. Moreover, in 1983 it was argued that in weighing up the ‘national’ against the ‘international’ in intra-bloc relations, national specifics had become more potent in the recent period, and especially in intra-CMEA economic relations, differences in interest had become more acute as a result of the economic difficulties, and interest reconciliation had been impeded.93 Divergent solutions had been adopted, but any attempt to set up one particular solution as ‘some sort of exclusive model’ would only increase tensions between countries. Certainly the GDR did not look to the Hungarian model although it too had reforms of its own very distinctive kind. The unique character of the GDR in Eastern Europe—indeed, within the broader ‘world socialist community’—has already been mentioned. The GDR is in many respects a sui generis case in that it was a modern industrial state, but within a divided nation. This means that in analysing the interaction of domestic and international factors in the reform of East German foreign policy ideology, a third category—alongside the domestic and the international—is needed, namely the national. East Germany found itself on the front-line of the Cold War in Europe, facing a stronger and politically more self-confident West German state across the Elbe river.94 As in the relatively unreformed North Korea, without the Marxist-Leninist ideology with which the ruling party justified its monopoly of power, the state itself lacked legitimacy. This was not the case in countries such as Poland, Czechoslovakia or Hungary, where the states themselves enjoyed national legitimacy, even if their democratic credentials were rather more dubious. Marxism-Leninism was therefore vital to both the North Korean and the East German states’ self-identity in a way that it was not in reforming communist states.95 The SED’s need to emphasize what it saw as the GDR’s essential class difference from the Federal Republic meant that for much of the time the Party was seeking to widen the distance between the GDR and its stronger Western sibling. Thus for much of the 1970s, the East German leadership strove to place inner-German relations on a state-to-state basis—in other words, to make relations with the FRG an issue of foreign policy, rather than German-German


policy.96 The North Koreans, by contrast, were more bold in trying to claim rightful leadership of all Koreans and stood opposed to a two-Korean solution. It was clear that the ideology of North Korea had far more to do with what was effectively Kimilsungism—a form of communist nationalism based on the notion of Juche which stressed self-reliance. The reasons for the contrasts between these two divided states say more about the distinctive features of each state, and reminds us of the range of policies available, even to rulers of communist states. Of course, North Korea remains resolutely unreformed in its foreign policy ideology, but the Communist Party at least remains in power. We now know that in the SED case, the brief attempt at reform, followed by retrenchment, was perhaps a fatal error in raising popular expectations and it certainly confused the case for the legitimacy of the GDR. The SED in the 1970s pursued a policy of ‘Abgrenzung’ (‘delimitation’) with the West, and ‘Annäherung’ (‘integration’) with the ‘socialist community’.97 To this end, the party leadership attempted to undermine the popular perception of the ‘Germanness’ of the GDR by deleting passages from the 1968 Constitution which drew attention to the German character of the country. For example, Article 1, which described the GDR as ‘a socialist state of the German nation’, was amended to ‘a socialist state of workers and farmers’.98 Nonetheless, whilst seeking to hold its powerful and attractive West German neighbour at arms’ length in the 1970s, the GDR also began to relish the perks of its unique—and in many ways, privileged—position. Its ‘special relationship’ with the Federal Republic meant that the GDR soon profited—economically and politically—from improved East-West relations in Europe.99 The GermanGerman link was a source of considerable economic advantage, and gave the GDR access to hard currency and Western technology not so readily available to its CMEA partners. A strong case can therefore be made for arguing that it is East Germany which was the main beneficiary within the WTO/CMEA of ‘peaceful coexistence’ with the West—certainly in economic and diplomatic terms, and perhaps also in political and security terms too. One important result of détente in the 1970s, therefore, was the gradual creation of a network of growing interdependence between the two Germanies.100 This interdependence was clearly not symmetrical: the GDR, as the weaker of the two was more dependent on the FRG. Many of the developments and changes in the country’s ideological conceptions were tied to the requirements of the SED’s Deutschlandpolitik. Erich Honecker’s September 1987 visit to Bonn was the highpoint of East German foreign policy in the 1980s. It represented the culmination of one of Honecker’s main foreign policy aspirations—namely, to be received with full honours as a visiting head of state in Bonn. Whatever the diplomatic niceties and the nuances of protocol, this is effectively what happened in September 1987. It also coincided with the most ‘openness’ in East German society and in the political system (opportunities for


GDR citizens, cultural glasnost’, a prison amnesty),101 as well as in ideological innovation (the 1987 SPD-SED Joint Paper). And yet the retrenchment that followed meant that in the end the GDR had to surrender to the most extreme version of interdependence—takeover by the West. The fate of the GDR was a cause of deep concern to conservative ideologues in the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam and North Korea. While interdependence was never likely to mean the same for these states, it remained true that in the wake of the 1989–90 revolutions, the reform of foreign policy ideology was restrained, at least for a time. In the Soviet Union, the 1989 shock led those who favoured reform of foreign policy ideology to move even further from old orthodoxies but the ideologues lashed back. For a time the result was polarization of positions, but there was evidence that by mid-1991 the march of reform was resumed. In China, the events of 1989 produced some polarization, but nothing like the Soviet case. In part because 1989 in China meant restraint on domestic pluralism, it was easier to impose a firmer line. But that line was one that stressed the Open Door should remain open, despite a mild campaign against ‘bourgeois pollution’. In effect, China’s foreign policy ideology stood still, but this was still a position that allowed for much openness to the outside world. Despite its alliance with the Soviet Union, Vietnam followed the Chinese model much more than the Soviet one. Like China, Vietnam was then viewed warily by the international market economy. But because Vietnam was far less important to that market economy, the international system has been slower to respond to its overtures. In sum, as befitted the local conditions in each state, each one chose a distinctive form of limited reform.

THE ROLE OF DOMESTIC FACTORS The reforms in foreign policy ideology, as we have seen in the other aspects of reform, were caused by a variety of domestic and external factors. In these final parts of this study, we attempt to assess the importance of pressures from domestic politics and the international system that helped shape the reforms. As we have seen throughout this study, the interconnections are complex. This is especially true of an analysis of ideology that tries to pull together the various types of idea that linked reform in economics, security and culture. The analysis that follows often strays between reforms in policy and reforms in ideology, but it is a convenient way to help sum up some of the major trends identified in the study as a whole. In the Soviet case, and to some extent in the Chinese case as well, the very speed with which the ideology changed indicates to an important extent that the major, but far from exclusive, impetus came from the domestic reform programme. In other words, as soon as it was realized how perilous the domestic


situation was, it also became obvious that a new approach to foreign policy was essential. In some cases, such as the Soviet Union, the ideological changes provided the blueprint for policy changes. In the rest of this section we will attempt to ‘slice’ the question of reform of foreign policy ideology in another way —one that stresses the commonalities and differences in domestic factors shaping reform. The subsequent section will do the same for the role of the international system in moulding the reform of foreign policy ideology. There were a number of key ways in which domestic economic reform demanded a new foreign policy in all reforming states. The cure that was prescribed almost immediately for the ailing domestic economy, for example, in the Soviet case, was uskorenie (acceleration) by switching from extensive to intensive industrial modernization. China recognized this fact very soon after the end of the Cultural Revolution and was quick to see the need to import sophisticated Western technology. But technology could only be imported if states in the international market economy would ease their suspicions and lift economic sanctions. As the list of goods prohibited by COCOM was reduced first in the case of China, and then in the Soviet case (and not yet for Vietnam), it was possible to expand foreign trade. This strategy worked for China which obtained Most Favoured Nation trading status from the United States, but worked far less well for the Soviet Union which was a greater adversary of the West and less competent in its reform. There were other, more direct economic reasons for reforming foreign policy. Although the absence of a proper pricing system made it difficult to quantify the exact level of military expenditure, the new leadership in reforming states knew that the armed forces took too great a share of the budget. The reform of civilian industries required more capital investment and the capital would have to come from the defence sector. As long as there was confrontation with other states, and in the Soviet case this meant confrontation with the West, there would be an arms race. However, for both China and Vietnam, the main part of defence spending was designed to deal with threats from other communist states, and so it was more possible to reform attitudes to the West without immediately tackling the question of reductions in the military sector. In the Soviet case, as Shevardnadze argued, Soviet foreign policy itself had been too expensive. It should be more cost effective, take economic methods into account and ‘increase the profitability’ of Soviet foreign policy.102 At the simplest level he implied that the overmanning, duplication of responsibility and waste that were criticized in other government and party bodies were also characteristic of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the two foreign policy departments of the Central Committee. But there was a further implication: Soviet policy had to be less prone to risk-taking, costly aid programmes had to be reduced and Soviet relations with Third World states of all kinds had to be extended, but on the basis of mutual advantage.


In contrast, for both China and to some extent Vietnam, the reform had the opposite effect of taking the country from relative isolation to openness which required far more spending on the foreign policy apparatus. Costly aid programmes were cut back, but the needs of effective management of relations with the international market economy meant growth for the foreign policy establishment. In fact, the Soviet Union seemed to face a very different set of problems in reforming foreign policy ideology because its domestic economy was treated so differently during the early stages of reform. Due to the failure to reform the economy fundamentally, Soviet foreign trade remained dependent on raw material exports. Soon after perestroika began world energy prices fell. As a result, Soviet oil and gas revenues diminished, reducing the foreign reserves available to pay for imports. Western credits would facilitate the modernization programme, but they were unlikely to be available unless Soviet relations with the West improved. Moreover, an important element of the reform programme involved encouraging foreign investment in the Soviet Union through joint ventures. But the willingness of foreign business to risk capital in the Soviet Union depended upon a better international climate. China found that international climate much easier to construct and its far more successful domestic economic reforms made the attractions of doing business with China much greater. Vietnam, like the Soviet Union, had a more difficult task in changing the international environment, but at least its economic reforms were more akin to those in China in terms of their effectiveness. The interrelationship between domestic reform and the restructuring of foreign policy ideology was not confined to the economic costs and consequences. There was and still is considerable domestic opposition to reform in the Soviet Union, China and Vietnam. It can be assumed that in all three cases the reformers hoped that a successful foreign policy might assuage the concerns of more conservative colleagues. But the corollary was the risk that a dramatic foreign policy failure might jeopardize domestic reform by increasing the pressure to move back from the entire programme of openness. The events of 1989 demonstrated both the opportunities and risks for all three states and helps explain the subsequent pattern of polarization amidst pluralism, particularly in the case of the Soviet Union. It is not difficult to suggest what role domestic factors played in the changes in foreign policy. It is far harder, however, to establish a specific connection between domestic factors and foreign policy ideology. Earlier it was suggested that the new political thinking acted as a blueprint, especially in the Soviet Union. Given the early appearance, especially in the Soviet Union, of many aspects of the new political thinking on foreign policy relative to other aspects of the reform programme, it seems safe to assume that the new ideological principles were initially intended to serve notice to both domestic and foreign


audiences that policy changes would follow and to suggest the lines that the changes would take. The most important domestic audience was probably the foreign policy establishment itself, since it would have to implement the new policies. To judge from the persistent urging of Gorbachev, Shevardnadze, Primakov, Yakovlev and others, however, mezhdunarodniki and the academics who trained Soviet diplomats were an important part of the audience: the task was to indicate the expanding parameters of Soviet theory, remove the siege mentality, and to encourage them to engage in the new political thinking.103 In China and Vietnam the reform of foreign policy ideology seemed far more simple and did not require a coterie of ‘new thinkers’. The leaders themselves, very much in keeping with the inheritance of Zhou Enlai, had realized that there was much that could be derived from a more open attitude to the international system. Deng Xiaoping in particular, described by David Goodman as pragmatic but not a pragmatist, realized that basic ideological objectives such as socialism could be obtained while the capitalist system was seen as a partner that could be kept at arms length.104 Perhaps it was the experience of other East Asian states, most notably Japan, that demonstrated just how much national characteristics could be retained while some degree of openness was developed. Vietnam has not yet gone as far as China in such a reform of foreign policy ideology, but then the revolutionary experience may be too fresh for the current leadership. But one certainly is struck by the pragmatic way in which China sought to find the best way to retain ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ in foreign policy. Pragmatism after 1969 was justified by the failure of the Cultural Revolution to inspire similar movements elsewhere and by the obvious international dangers which China faced. Fortunately, Mao Zedong was personally involved in the foreign policy reorientation. This both facilitated policy change and reduced the potential for open factional struggle over foreign policy ideology. As the policies proved successful and the old cadres patronized by Zhou Enlai felt more secure, the prospects of more extensive reform improved. The Chinese, and to some extent Vietnamese cases of reform of foreign policy ideology were also special in the sense that they had very different attitudes to the notion of socialist internationalism than the Soviet Union or the East Europeans. As the two other communist parties who made their own revolutions, they naturally took very seriously the matter of independence from appeals to socialist unity. For China especially, the problems surrounding the linkage of domestic politics and the Sino-Soviet split, and the similar linkage of ‘revisionism’ at home and abroad during the Cultural Revolution, meant it was harder to revise the ideological perspective on the Soviet Union in the 1970s. Geostrategic concerns about Soviet policy were paramount for China, but ideology was always a part of the tense Sino-Soviet relationship. Thus the horizons of economic contacts were initially with the West, albeit limited by domestic commitments to a centrally controlled socialist system. The staple


contacts of the early 1970s were such relatively neutral transactions as grain imports or turnkey factory projects, financed with a minimum of credit. After Mao’s death in 1976 Deng’s personal and highly visible involvement in the foreign policy of openness clearly facilitated and stabilized its development. Not only has Deng been involved in major initiatives toward the West, but he personally enunciated the changes in policies toward Taiwan and Hong Kong. But because Deng was so personally involved in the original Sino-Soviet split, it was also harder for him to normalize relations with the Soviet Union. Even during the early days of reform Deng spoke of the Sino-Soviet split lasting a thousand years. Yet by the mid-1980s it was even evident to Deng that the Soviet Union was far less of a threat than originally thought, and the Soviet Union’s reforms opened possibilities for cooperation on the basis of reformed socialism. As far as Vietnam was concerned, it was precisely this ideological and strategic rapprochement between the two communist rivals which squeezed its room for manoeuvre and forced the pace of reform. Although that reform received a strong push from the evident failing of the internal economy, it seems that unlike the Soviet Union and China, domestic forces were less crucial as a source of reform for foreign policy ideology. During the long struggle for national liberation, the defining domestic problem was a war against foreign countries as well as against another Vietnamese state on Vietnamese territory. With this understood, it can be said that domestic factors played an essential but subordinate role in shaping the ideology of the national liberation and national assertion phases, and the key role in the emergence of a reform ideology. Even though rural revolution played a central role in the success of the Vietnamese Communist Party against the French and the Americans, foreign policy ideology remained dominated by the international dimensions of national liberation. Indeed, even rural revolution was not simply a domestic factor, given the influence of the ‘Chinese model.’ The domestic situation defined the current constraints of policy and tactics, but the ideological problems of direction were oriented primarily at international events affecting Vietnam and were articulated in an international socialist orthodoxy. In the phase of national assertion, 1976–86, the domestic situation became the primary concern of national leadership, but policy changes were practical, stopgap measures rather than ideological reorientations. It was the clear failure of Stalinist ideology during this period which led to the definitive victory of reform at the Sixth Party Congress in 1986. By 1979 the economy was in worse shape than it had been during the war. Rice rations were one-third less than in wartime. Deteriorating relations with China contributed to the emergency, but the pressure to socialize the economy had to be relaxed. This was done unwillingly, under duress, and the screws were tightened and loosened several times in the early 1980s as different situations and different factions permitted. But the


economy remained in deep crisis, pressing the question of famine and survival, and blasting the optimistic assumptions concerning victory and socialism which underpinned the regime’s ideology. Nevertheless, foreign policy ideology during this period was driven by regional events in Cambodia, growing hostility with China, and growing dependence on the Soviet Union. From 1986 until 1990 Vietnam pursued a very forward policy of foreign policy reform with rather slow and meagre results, and the political strength and ideological conviction necessary for such persistence came from the general acknowledgement that there was no real alternative. Despite severe disappointments in the international response to Vietnamese initiatives, most prominently the Vietnamese military withdrawal from Cambodia in September 1989, the direction of foreign policy did not change. The limits of victory had been felt most intensely in domestic policy, and reform in foreign policy ideology was based primarily on the acknowledgement of the limits of victory. Hungary, like Vietnam, demonstrated the clear pre-eminence of external factors and the lesser role of domestic issues. Of course, it was true that there were clear parallels in the basic features of the ideological underpinnings of domestic reform, on the one hand, and of ‘peaceful coexistence’ and international relations based on mutual interest not class criteria on the other. But this linkage was not the main reason for the coincidence of these respective policies under Kadar in the 1960s and 1970s. The key determinant of foreign policy at this time was the Soviet line; Kadar appeared to use absolute submissiveness to the Soviet Union in external policy as a means of minimizing conflict with it over domestic reforms after the 1968 Czechoslovak crisis. Kadar avoided explicit ideological reform in any sphere as far as possible. It is true that an important internal factor for reform of foreign policy ideology in Hungary was the impending domestic crisis. This was undoubtedly an important factor promoting the break in foreign policy and the accompanying ideological revisions of the early 1980s. The political elite were well aware that a rupture with the West was economically impossible, and that the Soviet Union simply did not have the resources to step in to fill the gap that would have been left. The economic crisis raised profound fears of mass violent revolt in the minds of elite members. ‘1956’ was burnt into the collective memory of the older generation, and this explains the consistent sensitivity of the Kadar regime to the political impact of economic ‘difficulties’. The Polish crisis of 1980–1 reinforced this lesson in a timely way. They were thus prepared to take the risks of breaking away from Moscow, and sought thereby to enhance their domestic credibility. Our final case, the GDR, is in some senses the most unusual because it is impossible to properly distinguish between domestic and international factors in the reform of foreign policy ideology. There were three main sets of domestic factors which either contributed to the reform of East German foreign policy


ideology in the 1980s, or set the limits to such reform in the GDR. First, the SED, as we have already seen in the case of Hungary, realized that if détente evaporated, and German-German relations were consequently impaired, then the GDR would lose valuable financial credits, hidden subsidies, trade advantages, and technological ‘know-how’ from the West in general and in the GDR case, from the FRG in particular.105 Second, in the GDR in the early 1980s, as in the rest of Germany and in much of Central Europe, the question of peace and the new ‘Euromissile’ deployments became the focus of major public concern. In East Germany, this led to the growth of a small but politically significant independent peace movement, centred on the Protestant Church.106 This presented the SED with both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge was to the SED’s monopoly of power—the foundation upon which the whole of the East German political system was built. The opportunity was to reinforce its shaky political legitimacy by taking up and championing the issue of peace. Third, the limited extent of the ideological reform in foreign policy can be attributed to two main domestic factors, both of which are unique to the GDR case: the centrality of orthodox Marxism-Leninism to the political rationale of the East German state, and the continuity of Honecker’s leadership from 1971 to 1989. As we have already seen, the GDR was a state which lacked national as well as democratic legitimacy. Its raison d’être was therefore grounded in the Marxist-Leninist concept of history and class struggle. It was for this reason that the SED had so much difficulty in accepting the more radical implications of the ‘new political thinking’, particularly as regards minimizing the centrality of class struggle within the contemporary international system, and the reputed ‘peaceful’ character of modern-day imperialism. The very continuity of the Honecker regime provided another impediment to a more unambiguous and ambitious process of foreign policy ideology reform in the 1980s. This prevented the sort of extensive rethink of foreign policy aims and objectives which took place, for example, in the Soviet Union after 1985. In China, and to a lesser extent Vietnam as well, a change of leadership was also critical to making reform of foreign policy ideology possible. But as important as the specific qualities of individual leaders might be, it seems fair to conclude that only in the cases of the larger communist states—the Soviet Union and China— were domestic factors the major factors fuelling reform of foreign policy ideology. THE ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM As has already been made clear in the previous section, it is difficult to distinguish between pressures for reform that come from domestic politics or the international system. The danger of analytical confusion is all the greater when assessing a subject as ambiguous as ideology. And yet at least some factors can


be identified as having encouraged or hindered reform from outside the state. The case of the Soviet Union is perhaps most difficult to assess if only because as a superpower it played a far greater role in international affairs than any of the other states under consideration. But in all the cases of reform of foreign policy ideology, it can be said that influences from the international system played an important part. For example, the decay of the economy, especially in the Soviet Union, China and Vietnam may have been a fact in its own right, but it was when citizens of these states could compare their own condition with that of their rivals in the capitalist market economies (and even rivals in the communist world), that they could see they were rapidly falling behind. The Soviet Union and Vietnam had the particularly sour experience of seeing China make rapid economic progress, but at least the Chinese case demonstrated that some reforms of a socialist economy were feasible. Especially for the Soviet Union, the relevance of China might well have been greater than the less comparable Hungarian case. The shock to the psyche of the Soviet Union was sharp. In the 1980s Japan became the world’s second largest economy and challenged at least part of the Soviet Union’s superpower status. China had traditionally viewed Japan as a ‘younger brother’ so it was all the more galling when Japan came to dominate the economies of East Asia. West Europeans and Americans had long been growing far richer than the Soviet Union, despite the rhetoric and false figures that suggested the opposite. But for China and Vietnam, even to some extent the Soviet Union, it was the NICs of East Asia which were making the most striking progress. The NICs also demonstrated, as Japan had done before them, how it was possible to find the greater prosperity of closer integration with the international capitalist system, without losing important national characteristics or even important features of a command economy. Of course, the move to reform foreign policy ideology in the Soviet Union and Vietnam were not merely due to the positive examples from the outside world. There was also a degree of hostile pressure from the international system that raised the cost of maintaining an unreformed system. It is a matter of great debate whether the United States ‘forced’ the Soviet Union or China into perestroika, or the Soviet Union and the West forced Vietnam into reform. This line of argument suggests that, for example, the American military build-up under President Reagan made it far more difficult to sustain the Soviet war economy and the search for greater efficiency in the Soviet Union eventually led the Kremlin to ‘sue for peace’. The SDI programme, the tough line on INF weapons, support for Afghan rebels and other anti-communist struggles around the world all made the Soviet position of an unreformed superpower unsupportable even in the medium term. Few can doubt that such pressures from the international system had an impact, but it is far from clear that they speeded the process of perestroika and


the subsequent East-West detente or Vietnamese reform. Indeed, the precise opposite can also be argued persuasively. Particularly in the Soviet case, the key is in an understanding of Soviet domestic politics and when it was ready for perestroika. When the Reagan administration began its hard line in the early 1980s, the Soviet Union was in the last months of the Brezhnev administration. But even in the so-called ‘years of stagnation’ under Brezhnev, there were clear signs of reform of Soviet national security policy. The harder American line can be said to have slowed the process of East-West arms control by harming the case of those in the Soviet Union who argued there was a reasonable basis for détente. The brief Andropov era was clearly one step on a road to reform and it was not only the fading health of the Soviet leader that slowed and eventually stalled the reform of ideology. The uncompromising reaction from the outside world had more than a little to do with the limits to Soviet reforms at the time and the subsequent appointment of Chernenko as successor. The Chinese opening to the West, of course, took place in the early 1970s, but had far more to do with the fact that the West wooed China than the other way around. China was not nearly the strategic rival that the Soviet Union appeared to be, and in any case the timing of the change of American policy in particular had a great deal to do with the election of a new administration and the need to get out of Vietnam. It was China’s reform of its attitude towards the Soviet Union in the 1980s that was much more akin to East-West relations in the linkage between domestic and foreign policy. China changed its view of the Soviet Union when China itself became ‘revisionist’ and then eventually saw that the Soviet Union was serious about détente. The reforms in the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev clearly followed the crisis at home. The causes of that crisis had relatively little to do with outside pressure, although the problems in supporting perestroika had a great deal to do with the perception of a hostile external world. It was only a series of persistent concessions to common sense by the Gorbachev administration that eventually convinced the United States that they could do business with this real reformer in the Kremlin. The American unwillingness to abandon SDI, for example, can be seen as a brake on perestroika in foreign policy ideology and not a cause of East-West détente. By the late 1980s when the West welcomed Soviet reforms in less ambiguous terms, it became clear that the international system could have a positive effect in helping to shape Soviet reforms. Summits that were seen to succeed strengthened the reformer’s hand. Promises of aid and trade did much the same, as did arms control agreements. In the jargon of social scientists, ‘feedback loops’ supported reform. Similar trends were evident much earlier in the Chinese relationship with the market economies of the West. Although the basic reason for the increased growth in China was internal reforms, foreign trade and investment were clearly part of the process. Reformers were boosted by China’s improved standing in the world and even the normalization of relations with the Soviet Union


demonstrated that the leadership could provide China with its most peaceful international environment for centuries. When reforms in the Soviet Union were seen to be in danger in 1990–1, and in China after the Peking massacre of June 1989, the feedback turned negative as aid dried up and anti-Soviet and anti-Chinese rhetoric increased. The Gulf war served both as a reason for greater retrenchment in the Soviet Union and China because of worries over American triumphalism, and as a way to enhance the image of the Soviet Union and China as more cooperative actors in managing international security. In sum, the international system neither supported nor hindered openness as a general rule. The outside world did both, and sometimes at the same time on different issues. Although states like to believe that they can construct a coherent package of rewards and punishments that can send clear messages to other states, the reality is far more messy. The difficulty of calculating the impact of international factors seems especially evident in the curious case of Vietnam. One rather perverse factor encouraging Vietnam’s international openness may have been the relatively sluggish world response to its earlier initiatives. Vietnam put itself into the position of pushing so hard on the door to have it swing open that its policies were designed to be internationally attractive rather than internally defensive. As trade increased in 1989, imports flooded Vietnamese markets and Vietnamese domestic production declined. It might be anticipated that Vietnam will adopt somewhat more protectionist policies when international openness is assured. In addition, the level of anxiety in Vietnamese foreign policy ideology was heightened enormously by events in China in 1989 and changes in European communism. These illustrated the danger of mis-steps, the futility of repression, and the possibility of snowballing political change. As in Vietnam, in Hungary it is clear that international factors, and especially the policies of the Soviet Union, played a vital part in the cause of the reform. The breakdown of détente at the end of the 1970s confronted Hungary for the first time with a real conflict between loyalty to Moscow and the pursuit of domestic stability through reform. The attempt by the Soviet Union to increase bloc cohesion and discipline threatened Hungary’s vital interests as perceived by the Hungarian leadership. The senility of the Soviet leadership under Brezhnev and the prolonged succession crisis created conditions for bad decision-making (such as the invasion of Afghanistan) with which Hungary was in disagreement or the mishandling or avoidance of necessary decisions. In these circumstances, the smaller East European countries were bound to try to escape Soviet domination as far as possible. With the arrival of Gorbachev (after some initial setbacks in bloc relations), ‘new thinking’ became legitimate in international relations. Hungarian representatives were even able to claim that their own foreign policy


thinking had, for once, influenced the Soviet Union’s foreign policy and ‘modified the Soviet image of the world’.107 Very similar features also applied in the East German case, but ultimately it was the GDR’s unique international position which both helped to provoke and to limit its reform of foreign policy ideology. There were four main factors from the international system which contributed to the revisions to the MarxistLeninist concept of international relations in the GDR. First, the deterioration in East-West relations in the early 1980s raised the spectre of the GDR becoming the principal battlefield of a future conventional and nuclear conflict in Europe. Second, the fact that NATO—and the FRG in particular—was willing to counter the Soviet and Warsaw Pact military build-up challenged some of the key assumptions underlying East German military security thinking. It demonstrated the limits of a concept of ‘one-sided’ security, and showed that a continued military build-up did not necessarily bring more security. Third, the GDR found that its stress on the unity of the socialist community was seen to be misplaced when the Polish crisis of 1980–1 wracked the Warsaw Pact and the CMEA.108 The GDR therefore began defining and articulating their own specific foreign policy interests, as we have already seen. Fourth, and on top of these other problems in the international arena, there was the deepening political and economic stagnation in the USSR. This was undoubtedly the major external impetus behind the East German revision of their foreign policy ideology.109 The growing paralysis and stagnation of the USSR in this period led to a weakening of Soviet authority in Eastern Europe, and consequently to a growing divergence between the foreign and domestic policies of the USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies.110 Although the GDR and even Hungary remained loyal allies of Moscow and defenders of bloc unity, Hungary, and even to some extent the GDR also began to assert their own specific interests more robustly. Both publicly resisted the Soviet Union’s policy of confrontation with the West and with the FRG in particular. Frustration with the immobilism of Soviet foreign policy during the early 1980s thus led some East European states to define their own specific foreign policy interests, and to articulate their own concerns. From 1987 onwards, however, the GDR and Vietnam found themselves increasingly under threat—not from the immobilism of Soviet foreign policy— but from the accelerating dynamism of the Soviet domestic reform process. Of course it was these very policies which so pleased the Hungarians and the Chinese, although Peking was far less approving of glasnost’ than of perestroika. Gorbachev’s policies encouraged like-minded reformers nearly everywhere where communist parties ruled, and provided further ammunition for dissident groups in East Europe and even East Asia. The Honecker leadership found itself more on the defensive than any other communist state and a counteroffensive was launched by the SED’s old guard. This was aimed at countering reformist currents within the GDR, and as we have seen, the ideological counter-


offensive embraced foreign policy ideology as well as domestic policy concerns. But by then the swirling currents of reformist ideology were too diffused in the socialist community. Perestroika and glasnost’ were to rumble through Eastern Europe, knocking over regimes in their path. But in East Asia, the outcome was very different. China’s perestroika was already much further advanced and the march of glasnost’ was blasted on the streets of Peking in June 1989. Vietnam suffered no bloodshed in defence of Communist Party rule as in China, but the outcome was the same. By early 1990 it was more clear than ever before that East Asian communism was very different from that in Europe. CONCLUSIONS In sum, even if theory has not been the basis of day-to-day decision making in the communist states, it has played an important role in the setting of long term objectives and it has performed other important functions.111 Ideology has always been used, for example, to legitimize foreign policy (arguably it performs that function in all societies). The recourse by reformers to the early writings of Lenin and to Marx and Engels to support their arguments suggests that this function is still important in China and Vietnam, and of course not at all in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. However, as is already clear in the Chinese and Vietnamese cases, as the reforms develop, orthodoxy will be eroded and it will almost inevitably lose some of its power of legitimization. In other words, as it became more possible to criticize the founders of Marxism-Leninism (much more so in the Soviet Union than in China or Vietnam), and as plural and conflicting views were encouraged, so the stage of ‘new political thinking’ ended with the revolution in August 1991 and the foreign policy ceased to be a closed system of conventional ideas and wisdoms. In those states in East Asia that still retained a link to the ideology, the openness also meant that it began to lose another of its important functions. In the past, Marxism-Leninism provided the language, concepts and theoretical categories for thinking and talking about politics and international relations. It was the very means of cognition. As such, it exerted an enormous indirect effect on policy by influencing perceptions, expectations and interpretations. But where a plurality of views prevailed, there came to be multiple perceptions, many possible interpretations and a variety of desirable outcomes. Another function of foreign policy ideology has been to engender support at home and abroad and to serve as a cohesive device. In the recent past it has performed this service in the Soviet alliance as a whole, although this was far less true for the East Asian communists. Before the days of polycentrism this function extended to the whole international communist movement. It was also used to intimate policy changes and to indicate the limits of innovation in both theory and policy. In the case of the new political thinking in the Soviet Union,


many of the ideological formulations predated the policy changes they portended. In the first instance, the intention was probably to alert foreign and domestic audiences to the forthcoming policy reforms.112 Once the reforms had begun the new political thinking was used in an obvious attempt to engender support for perestroika in each one of the reforming communist states and for the leadership’s vision of a new international order. But far from demarcating limits, Soviet theorists, like those in China before them, were instructed to innovate and in the more liberal atmosphere of glasnost’ they were increasingly invited to ignore most previous ideological boundaries. This made it possible for the new political thinkers to debate with one another, to borrow from other theories. In other words, the theory became far more flexible, open to outside influences and it even changed. But such transformations clearly detracted from the function of ideology as a cohesive device. On balance, both Deng and Gorbachev seemed to have gone a long way in the endeavour of de-ideologization of foreign policy. What is more certain is that in all the communist states under analysis, except North Korea, it has been possible for some foreign policy ideology to be reformed in a significant way. But there have been major variations in the nature, pace and longevity of such reform. The causes of such variation are complex, and have already been discussed in greater detail in earlier chapters. Suffice it to say that the size of the state, its place in the international system, its specific domestic politics and the reactions of outside states have all been different for each country. Thus it does seem, as Stalin admitted, that theory tends to lag behind practice, although in the Soviet case the theory of reform sometimes seems to outpace the practice. Hungary had the longest experience with the challenge of such reform, although like East Germany it was always aware of the limits imposed by the Soviet Union. The GDR also managed a brief episode of reform against the Soviet grain, but it was such a unique case that it merely highlighted the extent to which the particular national charactersistics of the GDR made any far-reaching reform unsustainable. China has so far been the example of the most far-reaching and sustained reform of foreign policy, although not of foreign policy ideology. Before August 1991, the Soviet Union reformed its foreign policy ideology more completely than any other state except the transformed East Europeans. But until August 1991 in the Soviet case some aspects of practice lagged behind theory. In China, even after the unrest of 1989, the strategy of opening to the outside world was maintained, despite a brief suggestion by conservatives that the doors be swung shut. To be sure, China continues to be uncertain about how far the doors should be open, but its spirit of experimentation clearly extends to the ideology of the open door strategy. It can also be said that Vietnam has persisted in its ideology of opening to the outside world, although it has done so for less time than any of the other


communist states in this analysis apart from North Korea. As a smaller state, it has been subject to powerful pressures from the Soviet Union and China and its room for manoeuvre is far smaller than that in China. The division of the country with a more cosmopolitan south has been a special opportunity and problem. But like China, Vietnam seems determined to experiment with ideologies that support some openness to the outside world, while preserving the rule of its Communist Party. Finally, and as has already be suggested, the case of the Soviet Union seems hardest to categorize. Few can doubt the depths of its reform of foreign policy ideology before August 1991, even with the uncertainties of the conservative backlash in 1990–1. In the Soviet case, the influence of domestic factors may well have been relatively greater in determining the pace and path of reform, but as with all the others, there was an important role for outside actors in influencing the nature of change. Yet in neither the Soviet Union, China or Vietnam, could foreign policy be said to have been fully de-ideologized. China and Vietnam seemed more certain about their ‘socialist characteristics’, even though many doubt they can be retained for much longer. The case of the Soviet Union was perhaps the most difficult to judge because it seemed so much more uncertain about its future shape, let alone whether it will have a socialist character. In the end, and in the most unusual of circumstances, the Soviet Union joined its former East European comrades in abandoning Communist Party rule, leaving international communism as virtually an Asian phenomenon.

220

NOTES

PREFACE 1 The published volumes are Tsuyoshi Hasegawa and Alex Pravda (eds) Perestroika: Soviet Domestic and Foreign Policies (London: Sage for the RIIA, 1990), and Gerald Segal (ed.), Chinese Politics and Foreign Policy Reform (London: Kegan Paul International for the RIIA, 1990). One other book is in press, Gilbert Rozman, Seizaburo Sato and Gerald Segal (eds), Reforming Communism (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992). 2 A number of these have been published in the Chatham House Papers series: Judy Batt, East Central Europe from Reform to Transformation (London: RIIA/ Pinter, 1991); Christoph Bluth, New Thinking in Soviet Military Policy (London: RIIA/ Pinter, 1990); Christopher Cviic, Remaking the Balkans (London: RIIA/ Pinter, 1991); Leonard Geron, Soviet Foreign Economic Policy under Perestroika (London: RIIA/Pinter, 1990); J.M.C. Rollo et al., The New Eastern Europe: Western Responses (London: RIIA/Pinter, 1990); and Michael Williams, Vietnam (London: RIIA/Pinter, 1992). See also Adrian Hyde-Price, European Security beyond the Cold War: Four Scenarios for the Year 2010 (London: Sage for the RIIA, 1991), and Gerald Segal and Akihiko Tanaka, China’s Reforms in Crisis (London: RIIA, 1989).

INTRODUCTION: DEFINING REFORM AS OPENNESS 1 We are aware that there is a vast literature in the field of comparative communist politics dealing with aspects of reform. We are not about to engage in the usual academic exercise of citing all that has gone before, largely because this study focuses on the most recent period of reform when so much has been transformed beyond recognition. We believe that our particular emphasis on, and understanding of, the term ‘openness’ will provide students of both international relations and comparative politics with some fresh insights. This is not to claim, however, that there are no other recent studies that focus on aspects of openness. In the Soviet field, one can cite Jerry Hough, Opening the Soviet Economy (Washington: Brookings, 1988) and Ed Hewett, Open for Business (Washington: Brookings,

222 NOTES

2

3

4

5

1991); and in the China field, there is Robert Kleinberg, China’s “Opening” to the Outside World (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990). James N.Rosenau, ‘Pre-Theories and Theories of Foreign Policy’, in R.Barry Farrell (ed.) Approaches to Comparative International Politics (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1966), pp. 27–92. This issue is important to note, but impossible to resolve. The United Nations Development Programme, in evolving criteria for ‘freedom’, agreed that although the term must remain imprecise, it is still essential to sketch out the issues. The UNDP, in Human Development Report 1991 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the UNDP, 1991) notes both negative and positive freedoms, both of which are relevant to our discussions. Although these elements of openness are all concerned with internal politics and not foreign policy, they do note that one can distill a list of freedoms that have been internationally agreed (such as the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights) into 40-odd criteria for judging freedom. Further problems with such imprecise terms include weighing the relative importance of rights and occasional violations of rights. For some analysis of these issues see Barry Buzan, People States and Fear (Hemel Hempstead: Wheatsheaf, 1991); James Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990), Ken Booth, ‘Security in Anarchy’, in International Affairs, vol. 67, no. 3, 1991 and Ken Booth, ‘Security and Emancipation’, Review of International Studies, vol. 14, no. 4, 1991. Of course, the literature on the subject of interdependence is too vast to be covered in detail here. For a perceptive analysis of the state of the field, including the work of Robert Keohane, Joseph Nye, Robert Cox, Robert Gilpin, William Wallace and Susan Strange see Ghita Ionescu, Leadership in an Interdependent World (London: Longman, 1991). This study is concerned with communist party states—i.e. states ruled by communist parties. Of course, it is not always easy to identify when the Communist Party is no longer ruling and nowhere was this more evident than the state of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1991 when this study was closed. The impossibility of finding a simple cut-off date is compounded by the fact that it is always necessary to distinguish between changes of ideas, changes of policy and changes of institutions. In the case of the Soviet Union, it was not simply enough to declare that the Communist Party no longer assumed its ‘leading role’, a real transformation from Communist Party rule required evidence that in fact the Party was no longer in overall control. This was finally clarified in dramatic form in August 1991, although a form of Communist Party rule continued in some republics.

1 FOREIGN ECONOMIC POLICY 1 As will become clear, defining what is really foreign in Foreign Direct Investment is a major problem. For our purposes we include overseas Chinese investment, be it from Hong Kong, Taiwan, or further afield, as being foreign, even though a case can be made that this is really a part of ‘greater China’. Overseas Vietnamese have also played an important role in the Vietnamese reforms and the linkage between

NOTES 223

2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10

11 12

13

14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

West Germany and the GDR was a key part of the way in which the GDR opened to the outside world, however carefully. R.E.Ericson, ‘Soviet Economic Reforms’, Journal of International Affairs, no. 2, 1989. Barbara Krug, ‘Economic Reform’, in Gerald Segal (ed.), Chinese Politics and Foreign Policy Reform (London: Kegan Paul International for the RIIA, 1990). Jim Mann, Beijing Jeep (London: Simon & Schuster, 1989). Xinhua on 23 January 1991 cited in FE/0980/C1/1–2. Far Eastern Economic Review, 24 January 1991, pp. 34–5. David Dyker, ‘The Soviet Union and Economic Relations in Europe’, in Neil Malcolm (ed.) The Soviet Union and Europe (forthcoming) and Anders Aslund, Gorbachev’s Struggle for Economic Reform (London: Pinter, 1991). Arguments developed from Leonard Geron, Soviet Foreign Economic Policy Under Perestroika (London: Pinter/RIIA, 1990). Dyker, ‘Economic Relations’. Charles Zeigler, Environmental Policy in the USSR (London: Pinter, 1987) and Vera Tolz, ‘Informal Groups in the USSR in 1988’, in Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 487/88, 30 October 1988. D.J.Peterson, ‘Environmental Protection and the State of the Union’, in Report on the USSR, 22 March 1991. This section draws heavily on P.Naray, ‘The End of the Foreign Trade Monopoly— the Case of Hungary’, Journal of World Trade, vol. 23, no. 6, December 1989. See also I.Salgo, ‘Economic Mechanism and Foreign Trade Organisation in Hungary’, Acta Oeconomica, vol. 36, no. 3–4, 1986; and I. Berend, The Hungarian Economic Reforms (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). H.D.Jacobson, ‘The Foreign Trade and Payments of the GDR in a Changing World Economy’, in I.Jeffries and M.Melzer (eds) The East German Economy (London: Croom Helm, 1987). Far Eastern Economic Review, 10 May 1990, p. 32. Peter Ferdinand, ‘Regionalism’, in Segal (ed.), Chinese Politics, and Stefan R. Landsberger, China’s Provincial Foreign Trade (London: RIIA Special Papers, 1989). Ezra Vogel, One Step Ahead in Guangdong (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989). Far Eastern Economic Review, 15 March 1990, pp. 38–9. Gerald Segal, The Soviet Union and the Pacific (London and Boston: Unwin Hyman for the RIIA, 1990). Dyker, ‘Economic Relations’ for details. Far Eastern Economic Review, 1 August 1991. A.Nagy, ‘Why Does it not Work?’, Acta Oeconomica, vol. 39, no. 1–2, 1988. See generally Robert Kleinberg, China’s Opening to the Outside World (Boulder: Westview, 1990). Interview with Jiang in September 1990 in FE/0883 C1/1. See also, for example, an article by Xu Jiatun on ‘re-understanding capitalism’ in Beijing Review, 14 November 1988, an article on the lessons for Liaodong of world markets in Beijing Review, 15 August 1988, and on Singapore in Beijing Review, 10 September 1990, pp. 9–12.

224 NOTES

24 This section draws on Alyson Bailes, Themes of Sino-East European Relations as Seen in the Pattern of Visits (London: RIIA, 1990). 25 Olga Borokh, ‘Janos Kornai: The Economics of Shortages’, Far Eastern Affairs, no. 3, 1991. 26 Gilbert Rozman, A Mirror for Socialism (London: I.B.Tauris, 1985). 27 Gilbert Rozman, Chinese Debates About Soviet Socialism (London: I.B.Tauris, 1988). 28 Gilbert Rozman, ‘Moscow’s Japan Watchers in the First Years of the Gorbachev era’, The Pacific Review, no. 3, 1988 and on South Korea see Segal, Soviet Pacific. 29 V.Mikheyev, ‘Privatization in Newly Industrialized Countries: Useful Lessons’, Far Eastern Affairs, no. 1, 1990. 30 Kommunist, no. 8, May 1987, p. 111. 31 Ogonyok, no. 30, July 1987, p. 12. 32 Mark Boguslavsky, ‘Foreign Economic Activity’, Foreign Trade, no. 4, 1988, p. 10. 33 Aganbegyan, Ogonyok, p. 14. 34 Yu Borko, Kommunist, no. 15, October 1988, p. 113. 35 Walter Komarek, Kommunist, no. 17, November 1989, p. 115. 36 See Kommunist, no. 12, August 1988; no. 1, January 1989; no. 7, May 1988; and MEiMO, no. 3, 1990. 37 See MEiMO, no. 2, 1990, pp. 67–74; no. 4, 1990, pp. 126–9; no. 8, 1990, pp. 87– 95. 38 Janos Kornai, ‘The Hungarian Reform Process: Visions, Hopes and Reality’, Journal of Economic Literature, December 1988, pp. 1687–737. 39 Judy Batt, Economic Reform and Political Change in Eastern Europe (London: Macmillan, 1988). 40 Ye Bogatova and E.Kovalev, ‘A New Dimension in Vietnam’s Foreign Economic Policy, Far Eastern Affairs, no. 1, 1990. 41 See remarks by Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach quoted in International Herald Tribune, 16 March 1990. 42 DeAnne Julius, Global Companies and Public Policy (London: Pinter/RIIA, 1990). 43 Margaret Person, Joint Ventures in the People’s Republic of China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991) and Shen Xiaofang, ‘A Decade of Direct Foreign Investment in China’, Problems of Communism, March-April 1990. 44 Jan Prybyla, ‘China’s Economic Experiment’, Problems of Communism, JanuaryFebruary 1989. 45 The Economist, 19 August 1989. 46 Person, Joint Ventures, especially ch. 6. 47 Shen, ‘A Decade’, p. 65. 48 Far Eastern Economic Review, 15 March 1990, pp. 38–9. 49 Vogel, One Step Ahead in China p. 383. 50 Geron, Soviet Foreign Economic Policy, ch. 4. 51 Vestnik, April 1990, p. 79. 52 Geron, Soviet Foreign Economic Policy, ch. 4. 53 Geron, Soviet Foreign Economic Policy. 54 Dyker, ‘Economic Relations’. 55 ‘Free Enterprise Zone in the Nakhodka Area and the Maritime Region’, Far Eastern Affairs, no. 2, 1991 and generally Segal, Soviet Pacific, ch. 5.

NOTES 225

56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93

Dyker, ‘Economic Relations’. The Economist, 22 June 1991, p. 102. Financial Times, 29 January 1991 and International Herald Tribune, 26 June 1991. International Herald Tribune, 20 June 1990 and Far Eastern Economic Review, 24 May 1990, pp. 72–3. Far Eastern Economic Review, 21 February 1991, p. 38 and 25 July 1991, p. 51. The Economist, 15 June 1991, p. 20. Far Eastern Economic Review, 24 May 1990, p. 72. Far Eastern Economic Review, 27 April 1989 and 27 June 1991, p. 52. Far Eastern Economic Review, 11 May 1990. Far Eastern Affairs, no. 1, 1990, p. 45. The Economist, 7 April 1990, pp. 111–12, 15 June 1991, p. 120 and Far Eastern Economic Review, 24 May 1990, pp. 72–3. The Economist, 19 May 1990, pp. 113–14. Far Eastern Economic Review, 27 April 1989. R.J.Cima, ‘Vietnam’s Economic Reform’, Asian Survey, no. 8, August 1989. E.Kerpel and D.Young, Hungary to 1993 (London: EIU Economic Prospects Series, Report No. 1153, 1988). T.Sarkozy (ed.), Foreign Investment in Hungary (Budapest: Lang Kiado, 1989). Hy-Sang Lee, ‘North Korea’s Closed Economy’, Asian Survey, December 1988. The Economist, 31 March 1990 and a survey in 28 April 1990. International Herald Tribune, 4 June 1990 and 6 December 1990. Dyker, ‘Economic Relations’. Nagy, ‘Why Does it not Work’. Karen Dawisha, Eastern Europe, Gorbachev and Reform (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). William V.Wallace and Roger A.Clarke, Comecon Trade and the West (London: Pinter, 1986). Michèle Ledic, ‘Foreign Economic Policy’, in Segal (ed.), Chinese Politics. Gerald Segal, Rethinking the Pacific (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). Krug, ‘Economic Reform’, p. 25. Vogel, One Step Ahead in China. Geron, Soviet Foreign Economic Policy. Jonathan Stern, Soviet Oil and Gas Exports to the West (London: RIIA, Energy Papers No. 21, 1987), p. 123. Cited in Geron, Soviet Foreign Economic Policy. Philip Hanson, ‘The Internationalization of the Soviet Economy’, unpublished manuscript, October 1989. The Economist, 16 March 1991, p. 97. Dyker, ‘Economic Relations’. The Economist, 24 February 1990, p. 68. Far Eastern Economic Review, 21 February 1991. Frederick Brown, Second Chance (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1989), ch. 9. Far Eastern Economic Review, 27 April 1989, p. 73, and 24 May 1990, pp. 72–3. See also Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/Wo/118, A/6 and 0667/A3/7. International Herald Tribune, 21 April 1990, p. 17 and Far Eastern Economic Review, 10 May 1990, pp. 32–3.

226 NOTES

94 Far Eastern Economic Review, 10 May 1990, pp. 32–3. 95 This section draws on Vladimir Baranovsky, ‘The Soviet Union and the European Community’, in Malcolm (ed.) The Soviet Union and Europe. 96 The Times, 30 July 1990. 97 John Jackson, Restructuring the GATT System (London: Pinter, 1990). 98 Ed Hewett, ‘The Foreign Economic Factor in Perestroika’, in Paul Lerner (ed.), The Soviet Union 1988 (New York: Crane Russak, 1989). 99 Financial Times, 13 March 1991. 100 Krug, ‘Economic Reform’. 101 A.M.Van den Bossche, ‘GATT: The Indispensable Link Between the EEC and Hungary’, Journal of World Trade vol. 23, no. 3, June 1989. 102 Peter Hardi, ‘Detente in Retrospect and Prospect’, paper to a RIIA study group, October 1989. 103 On aspects of economic culture see S.G.Redding, The Spirit of Chinese Capitalism (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1990).

2 DEFENCE AND SECURITY POLICY 1 For a discussion of some of these issues see Ken Booth, Strategy and Ethnocentrism (London: Croom Helm, 1980) and Gerald Segal, ‘Strategy and Ethnic-chic’, International Affairs, vol. 60, no. 1, Winter 1983–4 and ‘Defence Culture and Sino-Soviet Relations’, Journal of Strategic Studies, Summer 1985. 2 Timothy Colton, Commissars, Commanders and Civilian Authority (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978). 3 Gerald Segal and John Phipps, ‘Why Communist Armies Fight for Their Parties’, Asian Survey, October 1990. 4 For historical detail see Thomas Hammond, The Anatomy of Communist Takeovers (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975) and more recently see Geoffrey Stern, The Rise and Decline of International Communism (London: Edward Elgar, 1990). 5 As argued in Colton, Commissars, Commanders but of course there is a large literature on civil-military relations too rich and inconclusive to be detailed here. 6 For example as told in John Baylis and Gerald Segal (eds), Soviet Strategy (London: Croom Helm, 1981). 7 Michael MccGwire, Military Objectives in Soviet Foreign Policy (Washington: Brookings, 1987). 8 Ellis Joffe, The Chinese Army After Mao (London: Weidenfeld, 1987). 9 On these cases see Douglas Pike, PAVN (San Francisco: Presidio Press, 1987) and Young C.Kim, ‘The Political Role of the Military in North Korea’ in Robert Scalapino and Jun-Yop Kim (eds), North Korea Today (Berkeley: Center for Korean Studies, University of California, 1983). 10 Gerald Segal, Defending China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). 11 Joffe, Chinese Army and Yitzhak Shichor, ‘Defence Policy Reform’ in Gerald Segal (ed.), Chinese Politics and Foreign Policy Reform (London: Kegan Paul International for the RIIA, 1990).

NOTES 227

12 Chwen-chi Liu, ‘A Preliminary Study on the Defense Economy of the PRC’, in Richard Yang (ed.), PLA Yearbook (Kaohsiung: Sun Yat-sen Center for Policy Studies, 1990). 13 Gerald Segal, ‘As China Grows Strong’, International Affairs, Spring 1988. 14 Le Duc Anh on Hanoi Home Service, 26 December 1989 in FE/0651/B/3–5. 15 Far Eastern Economic Review, 13 June 1991, p. 24. 16 Defence Minister on 5 December 1989 in BBC, SWB, FE/0633/B/2–5 and 0634/B/ 3–4. 17 General Doan Khue on Hanoi Home Service, 11 January 1990 in FE/0664/B/3–4. 18 Far Eastern Economic Review, 28 September and 19 October 1989. 19 Naomi Koizumi, ‘Perestroika in the Soviet Military’, in Hasegawa and Pravda (eds), Perestroika and Dale Herspring, The Soviet High Command, 1967–1989 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). 20 John Tedstrom, ‘Glasnost and the Soviet Defense Budget’, Report on the USSR, 19 July 1991 and more generally Christoph Bluth, New Thinking in Soviet Military Policy (London: Pinter for the RIIA, 1990). 21 Yuri Kirshin, in New Times, no. 12, March 1990. 22 Barry Naughton, ‘The Third Front’, in The China Quarterly, no. 115, September 1988. 23 For a Soviet view of the Chinese experience see Boris Gusev, ‘Conversion of War Industry: China’s Experience’, Far Eastern Affairs, no. 4, 1990. 24 Richard Latham, ‘China’s Defense Industrial Policy’, in Richard Yang (ed.), PLA Yearbook. 25 China Daily, 30 April 1991, p. 2. 26 China News Analysis, 15 May 1990. 27 Yitzhak Shichor, ‘Unfolded Arms’, The Pacific Review, no. 3, 1988 and more generally Saadet Deger and Somnath Sen, Military Expenditure: The Political Economy of International Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press for SIPRI, 1990). 28 Well covered in the analysis in China News Analysis, 15 May 1990. 29 Karen Ballentine, Soviet Defense Industry Reform (Ottawa: Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security, July 1991); Arthur Alexander, The Conversion of Soviet Defense Industry (Santa Monica: RAND P7620, January 1990); and Julian Cooper, ‘Soviet Resource Options: Civil and Military Priorities’, in Hasegawa and Pravda (eds), Perestroika. 30 Tass, 3 June 1991 in SU/1091/A3/2. 31 Yevgeni Adamov, ‘The Economic Reform and Conversion’, International Affairs (Moscow), no. 1, 1990. 32 See Cooper, ‘Resource Options’ and the earlier phases of the problem in Edwina Moreton, ‘Comrade Colossus’, in Curtis Keeble (ed.), The Soviet State (London: Gower for the RIIA, 1985). 33 Julian Cooper, ‘The Soviet Defence Industry and Conversion’ in RUSI Journal, Autumn 1990 and The Soviet Defence Industry: Conversion and Reform (London: Pinter/RIIA, 1991). 34 Harry Gelman, Gorbachev and the future of the Soviet Military Institution (London: IISS Adelphi Paper no. 258, 1991). 35 Far Eastern Economic Review, 13 June 1991, p. 24. 36 Far Eastern Economic Review, 13 June 1991, pp. 26–7.

228 NOTES

37 Pike, PAVN and Carlyle Thayer, ‘Soviet-Vietnamese Relations’, a paper presented to the New Zealand Political Studies Association, 15 May 1990. 38 Ivan Volgyes and Zoltan Barany, ‘The Evolution of the Hungarian People’s Army’, in Jonathan Eyal (ed.), The Warsaw Pact and the Balkans (London: Macmillan, 1989). 39 Edwina Moreton, East Germany and the Warsaw Alliance (Boulder: Westview, 1978) and Gero Neugebauer, ‘Military Politics in the GDR’, in Klaus von Beyem and Hartmut Zimmerman (eds), Policymaking in the German Democratic Republic (Aldershot: Gower, 1984). 40 Han Sung-joo, ‘North Korea’s Security Policy and Military Strategy’, in Scalapino and Kim (eds), North Korea. 41 Hanoi Home Service, 12 March 1990, in FE/0719/B/3, Quan Doi Nhan Dan, 29 January 1991, in 0983/B/2 and Far Eastern Economic Review, 19 October 1989. 42 Joffe, Chinese Army. 43 Eberhard Sandschneider, ‘Problems in the PLA’, The Pacific Review, no. 2, 1990. 44 Daria Fame, ‘After Afghanistan: The Decline of Soviet Military Prestige’, The Washington Quarterly, Spring 1990. 45 Shevardnadze in Vestnik, April 1990, p. 16. 46 Fame, ‘After Afghanistan’. 47 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Daily Report, no. 137, 22 July 1991. 48 Gelman, Gorbachev and the Military and Quentin Peel, ‘Divisions Appear in Soviet Ranks’, Financial Times 12 May 1990. 49 Ellis Joffe and Gerald Segal, ‘The Chinese Army and Professionalism’, Problems of Communism, November 1978 and Gerald Segal, ‘The Future of the PLA’, China in Crisis (London: Jane’s, 1989). 50 Tai Ming Cheung, ‘The PLA and the Tiananmen Crisis’, PLA Yearbook, 1989–90 (Kaohsiung, SCPS, 1990). 51 Harlan Jencks, From Muskets to Missiles (Boulder: Westview, 1982). 52 Stephen Larabee, ‘Gorbachev and the Soviet Military’, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1988 and Malcolm Mackintosh, ‘Changes in the Soviet High Command Under Gorbachev’, RUSI Journal, Spring 1988. 53 International Herald Tribune, 22 May 1990 but see a general discussion in Gelman, Gorbachev and the Military, and the role of Eduard Shevardnadze in John Van Oudenaren, The Role of Shevardnadze in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Making of Soviet Defense and Arms Control Policy (Santa Monica: The RAND Corporation, R-3898-USDP, July 1990). 54 John Lewis, Hua Di and Xue Litai, ‘Beijing’s Defence Establishment’, International Security, Spring 1991. 55 For some sense of these potential changes see Quan Doi Nhan Dan on 6 June 1990 in FE/0791/B/2. 56 Far Eastern Economic Review, 13 June 1991, p. 28. 57 Bohdan Nahaylo and Victor Swoboda, Soviet Disunion (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1990). 58 David Goodman (ed.), China’s Regional Development (London: Routledge for the RIIA, 1989). 59 Gelman, Gorbachev and the Military. 60 Tai Ming Cheung, ‘The PLA’.

NOTES 229

61 Hanoi Home Service, 14 March 1990, in FE/0719/B/2, and Hanoi Home Service, 26 December 1989, in FE/0651/B/3–5. 62 David Holloway, The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984); Stephen Meyer, ‘The Sources and Prospects of Gorbachev’s New Thinking on Security’, International Security, Fall 1988; and Raymond Garthoff, ‘New Thinking in Soviet Military Doctrine’, The Washington Quarterly, Summer 1988. 63 Far Eastern Economic Review, 13 June 1991, p. 27. 64 Schichor, ‘Defence Policy’. 65 Bluth, New Thinking for a general discussion of the Soviet case. 66 Peel, ‘Divisions’. 67 Gelman, Gorbachev and the Military. 68 Ellis Joffe and Gerald Segal, ‘The PLA Under Modern Conditions’, Survival, July 1985. 69 Gerald Segal, ‘The Chances of a Coup’, PLA Yearbook, 1990–91 (Kaohsiung; SCPS, 1990). 70 Defence Minister Le Duc Anh in December 1989 in FE/0633 and 0634/B/2. 71 Michael MccGwire, Perestroika and Soviet National Security (Washington: Brookings, 1991); William Odom, ‘The Soviet Military in Transition’, Problems of Communism, May-June 1990; and Pal Dunay, Military Doctrine: Change in the Wind?, (New York: Institute for East-West Security Studies, Occasional Paper no. 15, 1990). 72 For a general discussion see Van Oudenaren, The Role of Shevardnadze section 3 and MccGwire, Perestroika ch. 9. 73 MccGwire, Perestroika, generally. 74 Izvestiya, 11 April 1990, in FBIS/Sov/90–072, pp. 54–5. 75 Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986) and Gary Klintworth, Vietnam’s Intervention in Cambodia in International Law (Canberra: AGPS, 1989). 76 Robert Ross, Indochina Tangle (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988) and Charles McGregor, Sino-Vietnamese Relations and the Soviet Union (London: IISS Adelphi Papers no. 232, 1988). 77 Simon Long, ‘China and Kampuchea’, The Pacific Review, no. 2, 1989. 78 Gerald Segal, The Soviet Union and the Pacific (Boston: Unwin Hyman for the RIIA, 1990). 79 Shevardnadze in Vestnik, April 1990. 80 George Arney, Afghanistan (London: Mandarin Books, 1990), ch. 13–14. 81 This is a massive subject to document, but see discussions in MccGwire, Perestroika, Gelman, Gorbachev and the Military, and the author’s survey of the literature and the arguments in ‘Ending the Cold War’ in David Armstrong and Erik Goldstein (eds), The End of the Cold War (London: Frank Cass, 1990). 82 Gerald Segal, ‘Introduction’, in Segal (ed.), Chinese Politics. 83 King C.Chen, China’s War With Vietnam, 1979 (Stanford: Hoover, 1987). 84 Gerald Segal, Defending China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). 85 Shichor, ‘Defence Policy Reform’. 86 Xu Shuming, ‘Perspectives on Maritime Security in the Asia-Pacific Region’, International Strategic Studies (Peking), no. 1, 1990 and more generally You Ji and You Xu, ‘In Search of Blue Water Power’, The Pacific Review, no. 2, 1991.

230 NOTES

87 Chong Pin-lin, China’s Nuclear Weapons Strategy and Gerald Segal, ‘China: The Maverick Nuclear Power’, in Regina Cowen-Karp (ed.), Security with Nuclear Weapons (Oxford: Oxford University Press for SIPRI, 1990). 88 Data from SIPRI Yearbooks (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency’s World Military Expenditures and Arms Trade. 89 Stephanie Neuman, ‘The Arms Market: Who’s on Top?’, Orbis, Fall 1989 and also O.Shevtov in Komsomolskaya Pravda, 12 June 1990. 90 SIPRI Yearbook 1990, pp. 220–9 and 1991, ch. 7, p. 212. 91 Schichor, ‘Unfolded Arms’. 92 Gerald Segal, ‘China and Israel’, SAIS Review, no. 2, 1987. 93 James Cotton, ‘North-South Korea Relations’, The World Today, June 1989. 94 Gary Klintworth, ‘The Outlook for Cambodia’, The Pacific Review, no. 1, 1990. 95 Galia Golan, The Soviet Union and the National Liberation Movements in the Third World (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988). 96 Jonathan Haslam, ‘The UN and the Soviet Union’, International Affairs, Autumn 1989 and Aleksander Beloruga, ‘Soviet Peacekeeping Prospects’, Survival, May 1990. 97 Geoffrey Berridge, ‘Diplomacy and the Angola/Namibia Accords’, International Affairs, Summer 1989 and Chester Crocker, ‘Southern African Peace-making’, Survival, May 1990. 98 Bogdan Szajowski, ‘Ethiopia: A Weakening Soviet Connection’, The World Today, August 1989. 99 Shevardnadze in Vestnik, April 1990. 100 Long, ‘China and Kampuchea’. 101 Gerald Segal, ‘East Asia: The New Balances of Power’, World Policy Journal, Summer 1989 and ‘All Aboard the Detente Train’, The World Today, March 1990. 102 Alyson Bailes, ‘Settlement and Survival: China’s Foreign Policy 1989–90’, in RUSI Yearbook (London: Royal United Services Institute, 1990). 103 Beijing Review, 10–16 June 1991, p. 10, and Yitzhak Shichor, ‘China and the Role of the United Nations in the Middle East’, Asian Survey, no. 3, March 1991. 104 George Tan Eng Bok, ‘Arms Control in Korea’, in Gerald Segal (ed.), Arms Control in Asia (London: Macmillan, 1987). 105 Barry Buzan, An Introduction to Strategic Studies (London: Macmillan for the IISS, 1988). 106 Gerald Segal, ‘Introduction’, in Gerald Segal (ed.), Arms Control in Asia (London: Macmillan, 1987). 107 Discussed in Segal, Soviet Pacific. 108 A spirited discussion of this point can be found in Elgiz Pozdnyakov, ‘Foreign Policy and Home Policy: Paradoxes of Interconnection’, International Affairs (Moscow), November 1989. 109 Dale Herspring, ‘The Soviet Military and Change’, Survival, no. 4, 1989. 110 Lawrence Freedman, ‘The Politics of Conventional Arms Control’, Survival, no. 5, 1989. 111 Rene de Nevers, The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (London: IISS Adelphi Papers no. 249, 1990). 112 Neil Malcolm, ‘The Common European Home’, International Affairs, Autumn 1989.

NOTES 231

113 Shevardnadze, ‘Open Thinking Open the Skies’, Vestnik, April 1990. 114 Gerald Segal, Normalising Soviet-Japanese Relations (London: RIIA Discussion Paper, 1991). 115 Segal, ‘Maverick Power’. 116 Bluth, New Thinking, ch. 4. 117 Lawrence Freedman, ‘Europe Between the Superpowers’, in Gerald Segal, Edwina Moreton, Lawrence Freedman and John Baylis, Nuclear War and Nuclear Peace (London: Macmillan, 1988). 118 International Herald Tribune, 22 May 1990 and also The Independent, 21 May 1990. 119 Rene de Nevers, The Soviet Union. 120 MccGwire, Perestroika, ch. 7–9 for a discussion of these issues.

3 CULTURE AND COMMUNICATIONS POLICY 1 M.S.Gorbachev, Izbrannye rechi i stat’i, 6 vols (Moscow: Politizdat, 1987–9), II, 131, as cited in Stephen White, Gorbachev in Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 156. 2 On the numbers of political prisoners, see the annual List of Political Prisoners in the USSR, comp. Kronid Liubarskii (Munich: Das Land und die Welt), and the monthly USSR News Brief produced by the same people. See also the Amnesty International annual reports. 3 Wayne Brown, ‘The Soviet Union Returns to the World Psychiatric Association’, Report on the USSR, no. 44, 3 November 1989, 10–11; Robert van Voren (ed.), Soviet Psychiatric Abuse in the Gorbachev Era (Amsterdam: International Association on the Political Use of Psychiatry, 1989). 4 International Herald Tribune, 10 July 1991, and The Economist, 3 August 1991. 5 W.Shawcross, The Pattern of Reform in Hungary (Praeger: New York, 1972). 6 Gy. Aczel, ‘Aspects of Cultural Policy’, New Hungarian Quarterly, vol. XXVI, no. 97, Spring 1985. 7 R.Tokes, ‘Hungarian Intellectuals’ Reaction to the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia’, in E.Czerwinski and J.Piekalkiewicz (eds), The Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia: its Effects on Eastern Europe (Praeger: New York, 1972). 8 I.Pozsgay, ‘A Partdemokracia erositese a szocialista demokracia kulcskerdese’, Partelet (June 1969); and ‘A Part es az ossztarsadalmi erdek’, Tarsadalmi Szemle, January 1973. 9 J.Batt, Economic Reform and Political Change in Eastern Europe (Macmillan: London, 1988), ch. 7. 10 G.Schöpflin, ‘Opposition and Para-opposition: Critical Currents in Hungary’, in R.Tokes (ed.) Opposition in Eastern Europe (London: Macmillan, 1979). 11 Haraszti’s book was published in translation as A Worker in a Workers’ State (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977). 12 Economist Intelligence Unit, Quarterly Review of Czechoslovakia and Hungary, no. 3, 1983. 13 J.Batt, ‘Political Change in Hungary’, Parliamentary Affairs (Autumn 1990). 14 The full translation in East European Reporter, vol. 2, no. 3 pp. 37–8.

232 NOTES

15 R.Tokes, ‘Hungarian Reform Imperatives’, Problems of Communism (SeptemberOctober 1984). 16 Economist Intelligence Unit, Quarterly Review of Hungary, no. 4, 1983 and no. 1, 1984. 17 Vietnam: Renovation, the Law and Human Rights in the 1990s (London: Amnesty International, 1990). 18 Murray Hiebert, ‘Reforming Pains’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 17 March 1988. 19 Murray Hiebert, ‘Cheer in Cholon’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 4 August 1988. 20 V.A.Golikov (ed.), Sovetsky Soyuz (Moscow: Politizdat, 1975), p. 340. 21 For discussions of the workings of the media and censorship before Gorbachev, see Martin Dewhirst and Robert Farrell (eds), The Soviet Censorship (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1973); Angus Roxburgh, Pravda: Inside the Soviet News Machine (London: Gollancz, 1987); Marianna Tax Choldin and Maurice Friedberg (eds), The Red Pencil: Artists, Scholars and Censors in the USSR (Boston, Mass.: Unwin Hyman, 1989); Maurice Friedberg, Russian Culture, in the 1980s (Washington, D.C.: CIS Significant Issues Series, vol. VII, no. 6, 1985). 22 Vera Tolz, ‘Central Media Wage Propaganda Campaign against Lithuania’, Report on the USSR, vol. 2, no. 15, 13 April 1990, p. 1. 23 Robin Hunt, ‘Georgia Turns to BBC for Massacre Truth’, Sunday Correspondent, 5 November 1989. 24 For a discussion of the growth of glasnost’ in international affairs on Soviet television, with particular reference to telebridges, see Ellen Mickiewicz, Split Signals: Television and Politics in the Soviet Union (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 32–56. 25 David Wedgwood Benn, From Glasnost to Freedom of Speech (London: Pinter/ RIIA, forthcoming, 1992). 26 Michael Simmons, ‘Crime-Ridden Country Eagerly awaits Amnesty Report on State Executions’, The Guardian, 6 April 1990. 27 Broadcast Diversity in Eastern Europe (Washington: CSIS Books, 1990) and Gladys Ganley, ‘Power to the People via Personal Electronic Media’, The Washington Quarterly, Spring 1991). 28 Robert M.Birkenes, ‘Telecommunications in the Soviet Union: The Role of Joint Ventures’, Report on the USSR, vol. II, no. 32,10 August 1990, 5–8. 29 Soviet News, 18 July 1990, pp. 241–2. 30 The text of the law is ‘Zakon Soyuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik o pechati i drugikh sredstvakh massovoi informatsii’, Izvestia, 20 June 1990. 31 Vera Tolz, ‘Recent Developments in the Soviet and Baltic Media’, Report on the USSR, 12 July 1991. 32 H.J.Hendrischke, ‘Das Publikationswesen nach 1977’, in H.Martin (ed.), Contemporary Chinese Literature (Köln: Deutsche Welle, 1986), p. 419. 33 M.Schoenhals, CCP Research Newsletter, no. 3, 1989. 34 Zhongguo tongji nianjian, 1989. 35 1984 appeared in serial form first in Guowai zuopin xuanbian starting with issue no. 4 of April 1979. 36 Even in early 1990 this was still possible at least on one specific occasion. In Guangdong a copy of Sixian zhengzhi gongzuo wenxian xuanbian produced by the

NOTES 233

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47 48 49 50 51 52

53

54 55

56

57

Central Party School as a post June 1989 political primer was bought. This book is classified quite clearly and explicitly on the outside cover as ‘for restricted study’. On lobby literature, see, in particular J.C.Kinkley (ed.), After Mao: Chinese Literature and Society (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985). See, for example, Kam Louie, Between Fact and Fiction (Sydney: Wild Peony, 1989). H.Martin ‘Painful Encounter’, in David S.G.Goodman (ed.), China and the West: Ideas and Activists (Manchester University Press, 1991), p. 174. China Daily, 24 August 1984; China Daily, 22 June 1990. China Daily, 3 September 1990. Xue Muqiao (ed.), Almanac of China’s Economy 1981 (New York: Eurasia Press, 1982), pp. 604, 976. China Daily, 20 June 1990. John Fincher, ‘Zhao’s Fall, China’s Loss’, Foreign Policy, Fall 1989, pp. 4–5. Cited in Ganley, ‘Power to the People’, p. 12. John Sanford, ‘The Press in the GDR: Principles and Practice’, in G.Bartram and A.Waine (eds), Culture and Society in the GDR (Dundee: GDR Monitor Special Series no. 2, 1984), pp. 27–36. See also Elmar Dieter Otto, Nachrichten in der DDR. Eine empirische Untersuchung über Neues Duetschland (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1979). Dietrich Staritz, Geschichte der DDR 1949–85 (Munich: Deutsches Taschenbuch Verlag, 1985), p. 210. David Childs, The GDR: Moscow’s German Ally (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983), p. 90. A.James McAdams, East Germany and Detente: Building Authority after the Wall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 134. For details, see Wettig in Klaus von Beyme and Hartmut Zimmerman (eds), Policymaking in the German Democratic Republic (Aldershot: Gower, 1984), p. 284. Ronald Asmus, ‘The GDR and the German Nation: Sole Heir or Socialist Sibling?’, International Affairs vol. 60, no. 3, 1984, pp. 403–18. See John H.Esterline, ‘Vietnam in 1987: Steps towards Rejuvenation’, Asian Survey, January 1988, vol. XXVOO, Mp 1, pp. 86–94; Barry Wain, ‘Vietnam Undergoes Another Revolution’, The Asian Wall Street Journal, 230 June 1988. See Murray Hiebert, ‘Cadres Called to Account’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 11 June 1987, pp. 38 and his ‘Renovation of Newspapers’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 10 September 1987; Ronald J.Cimia, ‘Vietnam in 1988: The Brink of Renewal’, Asian Survey, vol. XXIX, no. 1, January 1989, pp. 64–72. Michael Williams, ‘Vietnam’, in The Asia and Pacific Review 1989 (Saffron Walden: World of Information, 1989), pp. 244–5. John Morison, ‘Anglo-Soviet Cultural Contacts since 1975’, in Alex Pravda and Peter J.S.Duncan (eds), Soviet-British Relations since the 1970s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press/RIIA, 1990), esp. pp. 170–4. See a US National Security Council document of 1956, in Yale Richmond, USSoviet Cultural Exchanges 1958–1986: Who Wins? (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1987), appendix. Michael Binyon, ‘West and East Join to Chip Away Icon of Lenin’, The Times, 7 April 1990.

234 NOTES

58 Paul Goble, ‘Ethnic Politics in the Soviet Union’, Problems of Communism, vol. XXXVIII, no. 4, July-August 1989, p. 9. 59 Mary Dejevsky, ‘Gorbachev Unleashes Market Forces on Official Media’, The Times, 28 July 1990. 60 Elizabeth Heron, ‘Pressing an Imprint on Glasnost’, Weekend Guardian, 15–16 July 1989. 61 Mary Dejevsky, ‘Russian Film Takes Communist System Apart’, The Times, 15 May 1990. 62 Jenny Byrne, ‘Movie Moguls Start to See Red’, Independent on Sunday, business section, 17 June 1990. 63 ‘China Sees Growth in Cultural Exchanges’, China Daily, 29 September 1990. 64 China Daily, 22 June 1990. 65 China Daily, 12 June 1990. 66 China Daily, 22 October 1990. 67 China Daily, 27 September 1990. 68 Beijing Review, vol. 31, no. 12, p. 31. 69 Beijing Review, vol. 33, no. 11, p. 32. 70 Beijing Review, 18 June 1990, no. 5. 71 Beijing Review, vol. 32, 16 March 1989. 72 David Childs, ‘Youth—Not so Very Different’, in D.Childs (ed.), Honecker’s Germany (London: Allen & Unwin, 1985), pp. 118–33 (p. 122). 73 See Mike Dennis, German Democratic Republic. Politics, Economics and Society (London: Pinter, 1988), p. 4. 74 Gerhard Brendler, ‘Martin Luther’, Prisma, no. 3, 1983, pp. 192–205. 75 As Henry Krisch has argued, ‘The Luther celebrations also afforded opportunities by which the regime could demonstrate good relations with the GDR’s Evangelical Church, impress foreign visitors and (as most of the important sites of Luther’s career are in the present-day GDR) earn foreign currency, as well as demonstrate the depth of regime commitment to a more rounded view of the German past. How serious this commitment was may be gathered from two bits of evidence: the large sums spent renovating sites associated with Luther’s career and the fact that no fewer than eight Politburo members were listed as belonging to the official Luther committee, including Honecker as chairman’. In The German Democratic Republic: The Search for Identity (London and Boulder: Westview, 1985, p. 86. 76 See Einheit, no. 12 (1984), pp. 1119–23 and the BZG (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung), no. 3, 1983, pp. 437–48. 77 Thomas Ammer, ‘Wandlungen im Verhältnis der DDR-Führung zum Judentum’, Deutschland Archiv, no. 7, 1988, pp. 699–702. 78 For a discussion of the ‘national dimension’ in the GDR, see S.F.Bowers, ‘East German National Consciousness: Domestic and Foreign Policy Considerations’, East European Quarterly, vol. XIII, no. 2, 1979; and R.D.Asmus, ‘The GDR and the German Nation: Sole Heir or Socialist Sibling?’, International Affairs (London), vol. 60, no. 3, 1984, pp. 403–18. 79 Junge Welt, 28 October 1987, and Neues Deutschland, 30 October 1987. 80 Neues Deutschland, 3 February 1988, p. 2. 81 Neues Deutschland, 19 November 1988. See also Barbara Donovan, ‘East Germany Bans Soviet Journal’, Radio Free Europe, Background report no. 233, 23 November 1988.

NOTES 235

82 Murray Hiebert, ‘People’s Art Comes Closer to the People’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 10 September 1987, pp. 49–51. 83 Bary Wain, ‘Pitiful Writer Jolts Vietnamese Minds’, The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, 13 August 1990; and Murray Hiebert, ‘New Chapter Opens as Writers Reflect Reality’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 8 September 1988, pp. 107–9. 84 Far Eastern Economic Review, 29 December 1988. 85 Asian Studies Newsletter, vol. 35, no. 2, 1990. 86 Geoffrey Parkins, ‘Fear as the Dragon Spreads its Wings’, Times Higher Education Supplement, 5 October 1990. 87 Interview with M.Ivolgin, deputy chairperson of the Council of Religious Affairs, in Argumenty i fakty, 11–17 August 1990. 88 ‘Bibles in the Soviet Union’, Religion in Communist Lands, vol. XVII, no. 3, Autumn 1989, pp. 257–63. 89 Jane Ellis, ‘New Soviet Thinking on Religion’, Religion in Communist Lands, vol. XVII, no. 2, Summer 1989, pp. 100–11. 90 Goble, ‘Ethnic Politics’, p. 9. 91 Bruce Clark and Michael Theodoulou, ‘Links Broken Off by Stalin are Restored’, The Times, 18 September 1990. 92 Jiang Zhimin and Xu Zugen, ‘The Rise in Christianity in China’, Liaowang, no. 5, 1989. 93 See Zs. Horvath, ‘Le Ferment dans l’Eglise: le Movement des Communautes de Base en Hongrie’, Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions, no. 65/1, 1988. 94 See Economist Intelligence Unit, Quarterly Review of Hungary, no. 1, 1985. 95 See Economist Intelligence Unit, Quarterly Review of Hungary, no. 1, 1988. 96 See Economist Intelligence Unit, Quarterly Review of Hungary, no. 3, 1983. 97 David Childs, The GDR: Moscow’s German Ally, p. 94. 98 H.Krisch, The German Democratic Republic, p. 124. 99 International Herald Tribune, 21 May 1991. 100 There is no time period linked to this statement, but it probably refers to the year 1989. ‘Soviet Foreign Ministry Spokesman on Consular Service’, Soviet News, 25 July 1990, p. 247. 101 Eva Kupel, Tourism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (London: Economist Intelligence Unit, 1990). 102 ‘Poezdka za rubezh—tol’ko na valiutu?’ Izvestiia, 12 November 1990. 103 Julia Wishnevsky and John Stavis, ‘Emigration from the Soviet Union’, RFE Report on Eastern Europe, special issue ‘The New Migration’, 1 December 1989, p. 23. 104 ‘Iskhod XX veka’, Argumenty i fakty, no. 28, 14–20 June 1990. 105 The Guardian, 3 November 1990; The Independent, 25 June 1991. 106 Xue Muqiao, Almanac of China’s Economy, p. 677ff; Beijing Review, 22 August 1988, p. 27. 107 Beijing Review, 26 February 1990, p. 42. 108 China Daily, 6 August 1990 and 15 October 1990. 109 Zue Muqiao, Almanac of China’s Economy, p. 677ff. 110 Beijing Review, vol. 33, no. 2, p. 28, vol. 33, no. 23, p. 29, and 25 July 1988, p. 30; and China Daily, 2 June 1990. 111 Beijing Review, vol. 33, no. 20, p. 26. 112 China Daily, 17 June 1990; Beijing Review, 10 October 1988, p. 27.

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113 Xinhua, 20 May 1991, in FE/1077/B2/1. 114 Beijing Review, vol. 31, no. 46, p. 34 and vol. 33, no. 22. See also China Daily, 15 June 1990. 115 Far Eastern Economic Review, 27 June 1991. 116 See, for example, S.R.Schram, Ideology and Policy in China since the Third Plenum 1978–84 (London: Contemporary China Institute, 1984). 117 Hartmut Zimmerman (ed.), DDR Handbuch, third edition (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1985), p. 419. 118 Karl Wilhelm Fricke, Opposition und Widerstand in der DDR (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1984), p. 171. 119 Roger Woods, Opposition in the GDR under Honecker 1971–85 (Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1986), p. 33; Ernest Martin, Zwischenbilanz: Deutschlandpolitik der 80er Jahre (Stuttgart: Verlag Bonn Aktuell, 1986), p. 98; and Statistisches Bundesamt, Statistisches Jahrbuch 1986 Fuer die Bundesrepublik (Stuttgart and Mainz: W.Kohlhammer, 1986), p. 80. 120 Der Spiegel, 23 March 1987, p. 17. 121 Der Spiegel, 31 August 1987, p. 33. 122 Far Eastern Economic Review, 11 June 1988. 123 Far Eastern Economic Review, 24 November 1988. 124 Aleksandr N.Yakovlev, ‘The Political Philosophy of Perestroika’, in Abel Aganbegyan (ed.), Perestroika Annual (London: Futura, 1988), pp. 33–70. 125 Moscow News, no. 2, 14 January 1990; Jonathan Steele, ‘Soviet Poll Backs German Unity’, The Guardian, 7 March 1990. 126 Sovetskaya Rossiya, 21 June 1990. 127 Zue Muqiao, Almanac of China’s Economy, p. 677. 128 Karl Birnbaum and Ingo Peters, ‘The CSCE: A Reassessment of its role in the 1980s’, Review of International Studies, vol. 16, no. 4, October 1990, pp. 305–19. 129 ‘Mikhail Gorbachev’s Address to the UN General Assembly’, Soviet News, 14 December 1988, pp. 459–63. 130 Melvin Croan, East Germany: the Soviet Connection (London: Sage, 1976). 131 Mary Dejevsky, ‘Kremlin Foresees Mass Emigration’, The Times, 6 July 1990. 132 For example: ‘Overseas Students’, Beijing Review, 13 March 1989, p. 15. 133 For example: China Daily, 7 July 1990, p. 1. 134 J.S.Prybyla, ‘China’s Socialist Economy: a Broken System’, in G.Hicks (ed.), The Broken Mirror: China after Tiananmen (Harlow, Essex: Longman, 1990), p. 194. 135 D.S.G.Goodman, ‘Damming the Yangzi’, China Now, no. 126, 1988, p. 13. 136 A.Kent, Human Rights in the People’s Republic of China (Canberra: Peace Research Centre, ANU, 1990), p. 16ff. 137 China Daily, 20 June 1990, p. 1. 138 China Daily, 19 June 1990. 139 See H.Vogel, ‘Small States’ Efforts in International Relations: Enlarging the Scope’, in O.Hol (ed.), Small States in Europe and Dependence (Vienna: Austrian Institute for International Affairs/Laxenburg Papers; Braumuller, December 1983). 140 Werner Volkmer, ‘Political Culture and the Nation in the GDR’, GDR Monitor, no. 11, Summer 1984, pp. 13–23.

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4 FOREIGN POLICY IDEOLOGY 1 For useful reflections on these issues see Karen Dawisha, ‘Soviet Ideology and Western Europe’, in Edwina Moreton and Gerald Segal (eds), Soviet Strategy Towards Western Europe (London: Allen & Unwin, 1984). 2 Ho Chi Minh, Selected Writings (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Press, 1977), p. 54. 3 Jean-Luc Domenach, ‘Ideological Reform’, in Gerald Segal (ed.), Chinese Politics and Foreign Policy Reform (London: Kegan Paul International for the RIIA, 1990). 4 M.Markus, ‘Overt and Covert Modes of Legitimation in East European Societies’, in T.Rigby and F.Fehrer (eds), Political Legitimation in Communist States (London: Macmillan, 1982). 5 Clifford Geertz, ‘Ideology as a Cultural System’, in C.Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 230. 6 The intellectual influence of France on Vietnam was far more thorough than Western influence on China, and as a result the full spectrum of European politics was present in the cities. But Vietnam remained an overwhelmingly peasant, Asian society, and Vietnamese communism succeeded through adapting to this reality. 7 See Brantly Womack, ‘The Party and the People: Revolutionary and PostRevolutionary Politics in China and Vietnam’, World Politics, vol. 39, no. 4, July 1987, pp. 479–507. 8 China’s search for international identity in the communist world and in the developing world is well described by Lowell Dittmer, ‘China’s Search for National Identity’, in Brantly Womack (ed.), Contemporary Chinese Politics in Historical Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 9 For a review of the work that began to question previous theoretical assumptions about economic development in the Third World, see Elizabeth K. Valkenier, The Soviet Union and the Third World: An Economic Bind (New York: Praeger, 1983) and Jerry Hough, The Struggle for the Third World: Soviet Debates and American Options (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1986). 10 Examples of some of the predecessors of the new political thinking can be found in C.Glickham, ‘New Directions for Soviet Foreign Policy’, Radio Liberty Research, Supplement 2/86; S.Shenfield, The Nuclear Predicament: Explorations in Soviet Ideology (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul/RIIA, 1987); and Neil Malcolm, ‘DeStalinization and Soviet Foreign Policy: The Roots of “New Thinking”’, in Tsuyoshi Hasegawa and Alex Pravda (eds), Perestroika: Soviet Domestic and Foreign Policies (London: Sage for the RIIA, 1990), pp. 178–205. 11 For instance, John Gittings argues in China and the World that China was seriously interested in substantial relations with the West in 1949 and was repulsed by the United States. 12 G.Sturua, ‘Soviet-American Relations at a New Stage’, in Steve Hirsch (ed.), MEMO: New Soviet Voices on Foreign and Economic Policy (Washington, DC: BNA Books, 1989), pp. 420–34; G.Shakhnazarov, ‘Obnovlenie ideologii i ideologiya obnovlenii’, Kommunist, no. 4, 1990, p. 50. 13 Gorbachev refered frequently to the new Soviet thinking about security in his speeches. His views on security and many other aspects of the new political thinking figure prominently in his book Perestroika (London: Fontana Collins,

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14

15

16

17

18

19 20

21

22

1988). More detailed expositions of the complex nature of security in the nuclear age and the main aspects of the new political thinking an be found in three articles by Deputy Foreign Minister V.Petrovsky, ‘Magistral’ny put’ k bezopasnomu miru’, Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya (MEMO), no. 6, 1985, pp. 3–17; ‘Sovetskaya kontseptsiya vseobshchei bezopasnosti’, MEMO, no. 6, 1986, pp. 3–13; ‘Doverie i vyzhivanie chelovechestva’, MEMO, no. 11, 1987, pp. 15–26. See also A.Dobrynin, ‘Za bez’yaderny mir, navstrechu XXI veku’, Kommunist, no. 9, 1986, pp. 24–5; O.Bykov, ‘Novoe politicheskoe myshlenie v deistvii’, MEMO, no. 2, 1988, pp. 9–10. See A.Bovin, ‘Novoe myshlenie—novaya politika’, Kommunist, no. 9, 1988, pp. 115–25; G.Trofimenko, ‘Towards a New Quality of Soviet-American Relations’, International Affairs, no. 12, 1988, pp. 13–25. On the need to de-ideologize international relations see, for example, two articles by Academician G.Smirnov in Pravda, 28 February and 1 March 1989; S.Pronin, ‘Ideology in an Interconnected World’, in Hirsch (ed.), New Soviet Voices, p. 95; I.Malashenko, ‘New Rules of International Behaviour’, New Times, no. 42, 1989, pp. 17–19. See, for example, A.Bovin, ‘Novoe myshlenie—trebovanie yadernogo veka’, Kommunist, no. 10, 1986, p. 117; O.Bykov, ‘Novoe politicheskoe myshlenie v deistvii’, MEMO, no. 2, 1988, p. 30 and on the Chinese case, Gerald Segal, ‘China as a Maverick Power’, in Regina Cowen Carp (ed.), Security Without Nuclear Weapons? (Oxford: Oxford University Press for SIPRI, 1991). Yu. Zhilin, ‘Faktor vremeni v yaderny vek’, Kommunist, no. 11, 1986, p. 120; V.Zhurkin, S.Karaganov and A.Kortyunov, ‘Vyzovy bezopasnosti—starye i novye’, Kommunist, no. 1, 1988, p. 47; D. Proektor, ‘Politics, Clausewitz and Victory in a Nuclear War’, International Affairs, no. 5, 1988, pp. 74–80. Bovin, ‘Novie myshlenie—novaya politika’, p. 120. See also Petrovsky, ‘Magistral’ny’; A.Dobrynin, ‘Za bes’yaderny mir, navstrechu XXI veku’, Kommunist, no. 9, 1986, p. 24. For more detailed discussions of the new strategic doctrine see V.Zhurkin, S. Karaganov and A.Kortunov, ‘Reasonable Sufficiency—Or How to Break the Vicious Circle’, New Times, no. 40, 1987, pp. 13–15; V.Zhurkin, S.Karaganov and A.Kortunov, ‘O razumnoi dostatochnosti’, SShA: Ekonomika, politika, ideologiya, no. 12, 1987, pp. 11–21. A number of comprehensive Western assessments of the new military doctrine have been published. See, for example, Stephen M.Meyer, ‘The Sources and Prospects of Gorbachev’s New Thinking on Security’, International Security, vol. 13, no. 2, 1988, pp. 124–63; Stephen Shenfield, Minimum Nuclear Deterrence: The Debate among Soviet Civilian Analysts, Centre for Foreign Policy Development, Brown University, 1989. Gorbachev’s UN speech was published in Soviet News, 14 December 1988. For a sharply critical characterization of the old thinking about Third World conflict, see A.Kolosovksy, ‘Regional Conflicts and Global Security’ in Hirsch (ed.), New Soviet Voices, pp. 503–15. Dobrynin, ‘Za bes’yaderny’, p. 28; A.G.Kovalev, ‘Sdelat’ perestroiku glavnym predmetom nashei zhizni’, Vestnik Ministerstva inostrannykh del, no. 3, 10 September 1987, pp. 9–13; ‘The USSR and the Third World’, International Affairs, no. 12, 1988, pp. 136–46, particularly pp. 140–3. Kolosovky, ‘Regional Conflicts’, pp. 503–4.

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23 I.Malashenko, ‘When the Stakes are High’, New Times, no. 13, 1990, p. 21. See also the discussion ‘The USSR and the Third World’, and Sturua, ‘SovietAmerican Relations’, pp. 431–2. 24 See, for example, G.Mirsky, ‘Extremism, Terrorism and Internal Conflicts in the Third World’, in Hirsch (ed.), New Soviet Voices pp. 582–90. 25 For an authoritative statement of the new theory about regional conflict, see Shevardnadze’s lecture at a Scientific-Practical Conference of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the 19th Party Conference of the CPSU in Vestnik Ministerstva inostrannykh del SSSR, no. 15, 15 August 1988, p. 39. Many Soviet commentators refer to the policy of national reconciliation adopted in Afghanistan as the precursor of other attempts to find political settlements to regional conflicts. The withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan is depicted as proof of the sincerity of the new thinking about regional conflict. See, for example, Yu. Glukhov, ‘Podvodya chertu’, Pravda, 15 February 1989. 26 Peking Review, no. 1, 2 January 1970, pp. 5–7. 27 The original is from a 1962 speech. 28 Mao Zedong, ‘People of the World, Unite and Defeat the U.S. Aggressors and all their Running Dogs!’, Peking Review, special issue, 23 May 1970, p. 9. 29 Ibid., p. 9. 30 Lin Biao, ‘Long Live the Victory of People’s War’, Peking Review, no. 36, 3 September 1965. 31 Xu Xiangqian, Renmin Ribao, 31 July 1978. 32 Soviet pullout from Afghanistan, Vietnamese pullout from Cambodia, and reduction of troops on the Chinese border. 33 Gerald Segal, Sino-Soviet Relations After Mao (London: IISS Adelphi Papers no. 202, 1985). 34 ‘Deng: Reform is “Second Revolution”’ (remarks made 28 March to visiting Japanese LDP Vice-President Susumu Nikaido), Beijing Review, no. 14, 8 April 1985, p. 6. 35 As reported by the eyewitness Zdenek Mlynar in Nightfrost in Prague (London: C.Hurst, 1980), p. 157. 36 See F.Feher ‘Kadarism as the Model State of Khrushchevism’, Telos, no. 40, Summer 1979. 37 See B.Kovrig, Communism in Hungary (Stanford: CA: Hoover Press, 1979), p. 408. 38 The key statement was delivered in a speech to the Political College of the HSWP in October 1983, published in the Party’s monthly theoretical journal, Tarsadalmi szemle in January 1984. A translated version is ‘Interaction of the National and the International in Hungarian Policy’, New Hungarian Quarterly, no. 93, Spring 1984. 39 See M.Szuros, ‘Hungarian Foreign Policy in mid-1980s’, in Kulpolitika, special English edition, 1985. 40 Ibid., p. 14. 41 M.Szuros, New Hungarian Quarterly, no. 93, Spring 1984, p. 9. 42 Ibid., p. 14. 43 See J.Batt, Economic Reform and Political Change in Eastern Europe (London, Macmillan, 1988), ch. 5. 44 Neues Deutschland, 12 April 1981, p. 4.

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45 ‘This is our unshakable position; this is German peace policy as an unwavering component of world-wide efforts to ensure that in the nuclear age war is no longer regarded as a continuation of politics by other means, and to do everything possible to prevent it’, Neues Deutschland, 25 June 1982, p. 7. 46 Hans-Joachim Spanger, The GDR in East-West Relations (London: Adelphi Paper no. 240, Summer 1989), p. 29. 47 See Ronald Asmus, ‘The Dialectics of Detente and Discord: the Moscow-East Berlin-Bonn Triangle’, Orbis, no. 4, Winter 1985, pp. 743–74. 48 Neues Deutschland, 26/27 November 1983, p. 3. 49 See, for example, Erich Honecker’s 1979 speech on the occasion of the GDR’s 30th anniversary’ ‘30. Jahre Kampf für Frieden und Sozialismus’, in E. Honecker, Dem Frieden unsere Tat. Ausgewählte Reden und Aufsätze zur Militär—und Sicherheitspolitik der SED (1976–1981) (Berlin, DDR: Militärverlag, 1982), p. 156. 50 See, for example, ‘Aus dem Bericht des Zentralkomitees des SED’, Neues Deutschland, 25 May 1984, p. 3, and Max Schmidt, Die imperialistische Konfrontations- und Hochrüstungspolitik durchkreuzen’, Einheit, vol. 39, no. 1, 1984, p. 33. 51 See, for example, Andre Brie, Europa: Wieviel Waffen reichen aus? (Berlin, DDR: Staatsverlag der DDR, 1988); and Gerhard Powik, Militärstrategische Partiäl— Gleich Nukleare Abschreckung? Berlin, DDR: Dietz Verlag, 1987). 52 Heinz Kessler (Hoffman’s replacement as defence minister), ‘Zuverlässiger Schikd des Sozialismus und des Friedens’, Einheit, vol. 42, no. 10/11, 1987, p. 900. 53 Ronald D.Asmus, East Berlin and Moscow: The Documentation of a Dispute (Munich: RFE Occasional Papers, no. 1, 1985). 54 J.Steele, ‘A Tale of Two Germanies’, Marxism Today, September 1986, pp. 17–18. 55 For example, on his state visit to France in January 1988, Erich Honecker declared that, ‘We wish to continue joining others in building the common house of Europe’, Neues Deutschland, 8 January 1988. 56 ‘Der Streit der Ideologien und die gemeinsame Sicherheit’, Neues Deutschland, 28 August 1987, p. 3. For a commentary, see Barbara Donovan, ‘An SED-SPD Statement on Ideological Disputes’, Radio Free Europe, Background Report 155, 8 September 1987. 57 The most innovative ‘new thinkers’ in East Germany at this time include Dieter Klein, Lutz Maier and Andre Brie. In some of Dieter Klein’s articles, he tried to develop a new paradigm for proving the potential for a ‘peaceful capitalism’, rooted in a study of contemporary political economy; for example, see his article, ‘Politökomische Grundlage für einen frieden-fähigen Kapitalismus’, IPW Berichte, no. 2, 1988, pp. 1–9. Similarly, see Lutz Maier, ‘Das Monopolkapital und die Friedenfrage’, in Max Schmidt (ed.) Sicherheit und Friedliche Koexistenz (Berlin, DDR: Staatsverlag, 1989), pp. 161–83; and Andre Brie, Intelligente Waffen oder intelligente Politik? Abruestung—die Chance der Vernunft (Berlin, DDR: Verlag Neues Leben, 1988). 58 Johannes L.Kuppe, ‘Offensiv in die Defensiv. Zum 7. Plenum des ZK der SED’, Deutschland Archiv, no. 1, 1989, pp. 1–7. 59 Neues Deutschland, 2 December 1988, pp. 8, 10. 60 See, for example, Klassy i klassovaya bor’ba v razvivayuschikhsya stranakh, Moscow, 1966; K.Brutents, ‘O nekotorykh osobennostyakh sovremennogo natsional’no-osvoboditel’nogo dvizheniya’, Voprosy filosofii, no. 6, 1965, pp. 27–8.

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61 K.Maidanik and G.Mirsky, ‘Natsional’no-osvoboditel’naya bor’ba: sovremenny etap’, MEMO, no. 6, 1981, pp. 17–30; Y.Novopashin, ‘Vozdeistvie real’nogo sotsializma na mirovoi revolyutsionnyi protsess: metodologicheskie aspekty’, Voprosy filosofii, no. 8, 1982, pp. 3–16. 62 Sturua, ‘Soviet-American Relations’, p. 431. 63 See, for example, R.Avakov, ‘The New Thinking and the Problem of Studying the Developing Countries’, in Hirsch, (ed.), New Soviet Voices, pp. 546–549. 64 See, for example, G.Mirksy, ‘K voprosu o vybore puti i orientatsii razvivayushchikhsya stran’, MEMO, no. 5, 1987; G.Mirksy, ‘Sotsialisticheskaya orientatsiya v “Tret’em mire” (nekotorye problemy issledovaniya)’, Rabochii klass i sovremenny mir, no. 4, 1988, pp. 118–29; A.Kiva, ‘Socialist Orientation: Reality and Illusions’, International Affairs, no. 7, 1988, pp. 78–86 and the discussion article by V.Sheinis, ‘Razvivayushchiesya strany i novoe politicheskoe myshlenie’, Rabochii klass i sovremenny mir, no. 4, 1987, pp. 77–90. 65 Kolosovksy, ‘Regional Conflicts’, p. 506. A.Kiva points out (A.Kiva, Natsional’noosvoboditel’noe dvizhenie, Moscow: Nauka, 1989, p. 317) that the Soviet Union is itself, according to most of its social and economic indices, a developing country. Soviet aspirations in the Third World should be tempered to reflect this. 66 Avakov, ‘The New Thinking’, pp. 553–7. 67 L.Lyubimov, ‘Novoe myshlenie i sovetsko-amerikanskie otnosheniya’, MEMO, no. 3, 1988, p. 12. 68 V.Zagladin, ‘Programmnye tseli KSPPS i global’nye problemy’, Voprosy filosofii, no. 2, 1986, pp. 3–15, particularly p. 9. 69 Dobrynin, ‘Za bes’yaderny’, pp. 28–9; Avakov, ‘The New Thinking’, pp. 537–57. 70 G.Shakhnazarov, ‘Obnovlenie ideologiya i ideologiya obnovleniya’, Kommunist, no. 4, 1990, p. 44. 71 G.Diligensky, ‘Revolutionary Theory and the Present Day’, in Hirsch (ed.), New Soviet Voices, p. 33; S.I.Appatov, ‘Kontseptiya novogo politicheskogo myshleniya: dostizheniya, problemy dal’neishego izucheniya’, Rabochy klass i sovremenny mir, no. 1, 1990, p. 53. 72 Bovin, ‘Novoe myshlenie—novaya politika’. 73 L.Lyubimov, ‘Novoe myshlenie i sovetsko-amerikanskie otnosheniya’, MEMO, no. 3, 1988, p. 12. 74 Yu. Krasin, ‘Novoe politicheskoe myshlenie i ideologicheskaya bor’ba’, Politicheskoe samoobrazovanie, no. 18, 1988. 75 See, for example, the discussion in Pronin, ‘Ideology in an Interconnected World’, pp. 87–106. 76 G.Smirnov, Pravda, 28 February and 1 March 1989. See also V.Petrovsky, in Evropa XX veka: problemy mira i bezopasnosti, Moscow, IMO, 1985, pp. 207–8 and the discussion ‘Ot balansa sil—k balansu interesov’, Literaturnaya gazeta, 29 June 1988. 77 Yu. Novopashin, ‘Politicheskie otnosheniya stran sotsializma’, Rabochii klass i sovremenny mir, no. 5, 1985, pp. 55–65. 78 M.S.Gorbachev, ‘Oktybar’ i Perestroika: revolyutsiya prodolzhaetsya’, Literaturnaya Gazeta, 4 November 1987. 79 V.Daschichev, ‘Vostok-Zapad: poisk novykh otnoshenii’, Literaturnaya gazeta, 18 May 1988.

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80 Ibid. and see the discussion in Dashichev et al., ‘East-West Relations and Eastern Europe…the Soviet Perspective’, Problems of Communism, nos 3–4, May-August 1988, pp. 37–8. 81 A.Bovin, ‘Mirnoe sosushchestvovanie i mirovaya sistema sotsializma’, MEMO, no. 7, 1988, p. 10. 82 See the communique issued by the Political Consultative Committee of the Warsaw Pact countries in Pravda, 9 July 1989. 83 See Zhongguo Tongji Nianjian 1988, p. 721. 84 Deng Xiaoping, ‘Safeguard World Peace and Secure Domestic Development’ (29 May 1984) in Deng Xiaoping, Build Socialism with Chinese Characteristics (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1985), pp. 28–9. 85 Dittmer, ‘China’s Search’. 86 Zhao Ziyang, ‘For a New International Economic Order’, (Cancun, 22 October 1981), Beijing Review, no. 44, 2 November 1981, pp. 13–16. 87 ‘Foreign Contracts Will Be Respected’, (2 November), Beijing Review, no. 46, 14– 20 November 1988, p. 10. 88 People’s Daily, 23 June 1989. 89 Deng Xiaoping, ‘Opening Speech at the Twelfth National Congress of the CCP’ (1 September 1982), in Deng, Build Socialism, p. 3. 90 See Christine White, ‘Recent Debates in Vietnamese Development Policy’, in G.White, R.Murray and C.White (eds), Revolutionary Socialist Development in the Third World (Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1983), p. 236. 91 An example of this is Kadar’s article on ‘Hungary and Peace in Europe’, translated in New Hungarian Quarterly, no. 11, Winter 1985. 92 Ibid., p. 17. 93 See M.Szuros, New Hungarian Quarterly, no. 93, Spring 1984, p. 14. 94 Peter Christian Ludz, ‘Legitimacy in a Divided Nation: the Case of the German Democratic Republic’, in Bogdan Denitch (ed.), Legitimation of Regimes: International Frameworks for Analysis (London: Sage, 1979), pp. 161–75; Henry Krisch, ‘Political Legitimation in the German Democratic Republic’, in T.H.Rigby (ed.), Political Legitimation in Communist States (London: Macmillan, 1982), pp. 111–25; and Martin McCauley, ‘Official and Unofficial Nationalism in the GDR’, GDR Monitor, no. 5, Summer 1985, pp. 13–20. 95 Werner Volkmer, ‘Political Culture and the Nation in the GDR’, GDR Monitor, no. 11, Summer 1984, pp. 13–25. 96 Inge Christopher, ‘The GDR—A German Nation or a Socialist Nation?’, in Ian Wallace (ed.), The GDR Under Honecker 1971–81 (Dundee: GDR Monitor, 1981), pp. 83–9. 97 David Childs, ‘The Ostpolitik and Domestic Politics in East Germany’, in Roger Tilford (ed.), The Ostpolitik and Political Change in Germany (Farnborough: Saxon House, 1975), pp. 59–75. 98 On the Constitution and the 1974 amendments, see Die Sozialistischer Verfassung der DDR. Text und Kommentar, Siegfried Mampel (Frankfurt am Main: Alfred Metzner Verlag, 1972), and Die Neue Verfassung der DDR, introductory commentary by Dieter Müller-Römer (Cologne: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1974). For an analysis, see Inge Christopher, ‘The Written Constitution—the Basic Law of a Socialist State?’ in David Childs (ed.), Honecker’s Germany (London: Allen & Unwin, 1985), pp. 15–31.

NOTES 243

99 Michael Sodaro, ‘External Influences on Regime Stability in the GDR: A Linkage Analysis’, in M.Sodaro and Sharon Wolchik (eds), Foreign and Domestic Policy in Eastern Europe in the 1980s (London: Macmillan, 1983), pp. 81–110. 100 Wilhelm Bruns, Deutsch-Deutsche Beziehungen, 4th revised edition (Opladen: Leske, 1984). 101 A.G.V.Hyde-Price, ‘Perestroika or Umgestaltung? East Germany and the Gorbachev Revolution’, Journal of Communist Studies, vol. 5, no. 2, June 1989, pp. 185–210. 102 E.Shevardnadze, in a speech to a meeting of the aktiv of the Diplomatic Academy, Moscow State Institute of International Relations and Central Apparatus of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 27 June 1987, published in Vestnik Ministerstva inostrannykh del SSSR, no. 2, 26 August 1987, p. 31. 103 M.S.Gorbachev, Speech to a meeting of heads of social science departments, Pravda, 2 October 1986; Shevardnadze, speech, op. cit.; E.Primakov, ‘XXVII s’ezd KPSS i issledovanie problem mirovoi ekonomiki i mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii’, MEMO, no. 5, 1986, pp. 3–14; A.Yakovlev, ‘Dostizhenie kachestvenno novogo obshchestva i obshchestva i obshchestvennye nauki’, Kommunist, no. 8, 1987, pp. 3–22. 104 David Goodman, Deng Xiaoping (London: Sphere, 1990). 105 Gert Leptin, ‘Economic Relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic’, in Dalchoong Kim and Werner Gumpel (eds), New Directions in East-West Relations. German and Korean Perspectives (Seoul: Yonsei University, 1987), pp. 137–46. 106 On the unofficial East German peace movement, see John Sandford, The Sword and the Ploughshare: Autonomous Peace Initiatives in East Germany (London: Merlin/END, 1983); Klaus Ehring and Martin Dallwitz, Schwerter zu Pflugscharen, Friedensbewegung in der DDR (Reinbeck: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1982); and Ronald Asmus, ‘Is there a Peace Movement in the GDR?’, Orbis, vol. 27, Summer 1983, pp. 301–41; and Gus Fagan, ‘The Peace Movement Enters its Second Year’, Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, vol. 6, nos 1–2, Summer 1983, pp. 19–21. 107 See Gy. Horn, ‘Hungary in the System of International relations—Conclusions and Perspectives’, in Kulpolitika, special English language edition, 1987, p. 11. 108 Indeed, Article 6 of the 1968 Constitution (as amended in 1974) states categorically that ‘the all-round strengthening of the socialist community gathered around the Soviet Union is the foremost foreign policy objective of the Socialist Unity Party’. 109 M.Croan, ‘Eurocommunist and East Germany’, in V.Aspaturian et al., Eurocommunism Between East and West (Bloomington: Indiana, 1980), p. 153. 110 M.Hatschikyan, Der Ostbloc und Gorbachev 1986: Zur Bloc-und Westpolitik der kleineren Warschauer-Pakt-Staaten (Sankt Augustin, Bonn: Forschunginstitut der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, 1987). 111 A detailed analysis of the changes in Soviet international relations theory and the functions fulfilled by that theory is offered in Margot Light, The Soviet Theory of International Relations (Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1988). See also Allen Lynch, The Soviet Study of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 112 This is not to suggest that the new political thinking was invented by policymakers. Aganbegyan once maintained that Gorbachev has a history of surrounding

244 NOTES

himself with a small group of specialists and borrowing and learning from the ideas and concepts that fit with his views. As far as foreign policy is concerned, he was probably close to Yakovlev (it has been rumoured that he was instrumental in getting Yakovlev back from Canada and he certainly promoted him very quickly) even before he became general secretary. And Yakolev both had ideas himself and was in a position to ‘talent spot’ in IMEMO.

INDEX

Abuladze, T. 138, 144 Aczel, G. 119 Afghanistan 29, 64, 74, 82, 88, 92, 96, 114, 161, 183, 187, 203, 213 Aganbegyan, A. 37 Agnelli, U. 38 Albania 186 ‘all-human’ interests 192, 197 Amnesty International 128 Andropov, Y. 213 Angola 93, 95, 98, 139, 183 armed forces: inter-service rivalry 81; new technology 81; procurement policy 81; professionalization 63, 65, 76, 80 arms, see conventional weapons; nuclear weapons arms control 98 arms transfers 91 Asian Development Bank 56 Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) 57, 94 Australia 117, 139, 159 Austria 157, 203; Vienna 165

Bovin, A. 198 Brezhnev, L. 23, 77, 80, 84, 99, 104, 113, 128, 182, 190, 198, 213, 215 Bridges, B. vii broadcasting 127, 132 Brus, W. 38 Bulgaria 33 Burlatsky, F. 128 Burma 139 Bush, G. 122 Buzan, B. 1 Cambodia 10, 15, 57, 61, 67, 87, 91, 94, 95, 96, 99, 108, 183, 187, 202, 210; Phnom Penh 84, 87, 92 Cao Yu 140 CFE (Conventional Forces in Europe) 77, 101 Chernenko, K. 105, 114, 213 China: at war 89; attitude to Korea 97; banking system 35; CCP Propaganda Department 130; changing role in East Asia 14; civil service 35; civil-military relations 64; culture 139; currency 45; decentralization 27, 31, 40, 79; decision-making 22, 76; defence industry 70; defence policy 73, 93, 96, 104, 184; defence spending 65; domestic factors 206;

Baltic republics 28, 80 banking systems 20, 35, 43 Batt, J. vii, 111, 175 Bebel, A. 142 Becher, J. 135 Berlin 36, 143, 166 Bloch, E. 143 Bogomolov, O. 37

245

246 INDEX

Dongbei 28; emigration 153; five principles of peaceful co-existence 10; foreign direct investment (FDI) 39, 59; foreign economic policy 9, 40, 56, 153; foreign influences 33, 168; foreign policy ideology 206, 212; foreign trade 48; foreign visitors 140; Fujian 27; Gold Coast 41; Guangdong 27, 28, 41, 46, 49; Hainan Island 28, 40; IMF and World Bank 23, 56; interdependence 199; joint ventures 40, 48, 140; legal system 35, 118, 171; manufactured goods 25, 48; media 129; mixed marriages 156; Ningxia 170; non-aligned 187; Peking 27, 34, 47, 56, 65, 76, 87, 90, 96, 105, 117, 124, 131, 141, 154, 171, 214, 216; political reform 116, 160; pragmatism 32, 171, 185, 200, 208; professionalism 23, 81; Qinghai 154; reform within communism 20; religion 148, 170; Shandgong 28; Shanghai 28, 41, 132, 156; Shenzhen 28, 35, 36; Special Economic Zones (SEZs) 3, 23, 36, 40, 48, 163; students abroad 169; tourism 153, 163; Xinjiang 27, 28, 61, 79, 170; Zhao Ziyang 200 Christianity, see religion cinema 138, 144 civil-military relations 62, 65 COCOM (Co-ordinating Committee for Export to Communist Areas) 50, 70, 206 Cohen, S. 38

Cold War, end of 13 command economy, inefficiency 20 Common European Home 101, 107, 165, 193, 197 common security 94, 103, 106, 181, 192 communications policy, see culture and communications policy conventional weapons 99 corruption 160 Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) 23, 43, 47, 49, 203 CSCE (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) 61, 94, 99, 101, 113, 164, 197 Cserhati, J. 150 Cuba 95 cultural background 3, 10, 111 culture and communications policy 5, 111; and domestic politics 160; foreign influences on 164; freedom to organize 113; and internationalization of culture 137; motivation behind 111; reform of the media 125; religious reform 146; summarized 171; tourism and emigration 152 Cyprus 139 Czechoslovakia 21, 34, 38, 52, 82, 113, 118, 119, 132, 189, 191, 193, 204, 211 decentralization 19, 23, 31, 40, 56, 59; see also regionalism defence industry, conversion to civilian production 70 defence policy 9, 61; alliances 106; arms control and disarmament 98; decision-making 76; demilitarization 65, 72; and the international system 86; military doctrine 83; national security 181; openness 5; professionalism 5, 80; reform 62; and regionalism 78;

INDEX 247

summarized 107; see also conventional weapons; nuclear weapons defence spending 206 demilitarization: of the economy 65; of society 72 Deng Liqun 36 Deng Xiaoping 64, 117, 163, 186, 200, 208, 217 Deutscher, I. 138 developing world 13 disarmament 98 dissidents 120, 122 Dittmer, L. 200 Do Muoi 152 Dubcek, A. 120, 189 Duncan, P.J.S. 111 economic reform, see foreign economic policy education 83, 138, 140, 145 emigration 152, 166 energy consumption 53 Engels, F. 216 environmental movement 24 Etchegaray, Cardinal 152 Ethiopia 95, 139, 183 European Community (EC) 13, 53, 57 exchange rate, dual 46 Fahd, King 148 Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) 11, 37, 45, 52, 107, 134, 139, 142, 158, 166, 173, 203 financial management 34 Finland 203 foreign debt 21, 47, 52 foreign direct investment (FDI) 4, 39; China 39, 59; German Democratic Republic (GDR) 45; Hungary 44; People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (PDRK) 45; Vietnam 43 foreign economic policy 9, 19;

decision making 21; domestic dimension 20; international system 32; multilateral relations 53; regionalism 27; summarized 58; see also foreign direct investment; foreign trade Foreign Exchange Adjustment Centres 46 foreign policy ideology 175; aggressive 72; course of reform 179; origin of reform 179; role of domestic factors 206; role of international system 212; summary 216 foreign trade 47 foreign trade/GDP ratio 47 France 44, 67, 87, 93, 105, 159, 210 G-7 30, 54, 56 Galbraith, J.K. 38 Gartner, M. 133 Geertz, C. 177 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 4, 55 German Democratic Republic (GDR): civil-military relations 63; culture 141; defence spending 68, 99; demilitarization of society 72; domestic factors 211; foreign direct investment 45; foreign policy ideology 211, 215; foreign trade 52; a front-line state 11; human rights 165; interdependence 203; Konbinat 26; national security 191; peace movement 211; political reform 122, 134; religion 143, 150; tourism and emigration 157, 166 German standardization system 22, 49 Goa Shangquan 35

248 INDEX

Goodman, D.S.G. 111, 208 Gorbachev, M. 13, 30, 74, 84, 96, 100, 102, 105, 107, 111, 114, 117, 123, 126, 143, 147, 161, 164, 172, 179, 191, 194, 198, 208, 214, 216 Govorukhin, S. 138 Gromyko, A. 114 Grósz, K. 35 Gulf war 84, 94, 96 Haraszti, M. 121 Havasi, F. 36 Helsinki Final Act 113, 164 Heng Samrin 91 Herrnstadt, R. 143 history, study of 138, 142 Hitler, A. 142, 144, 175 Ho Chi Minh 175, 178 Honecker, E. 36, 134, 150, 158, 177, 192, 205, 212, 216 Hong Kong 27, 35, 41, 46, 49, 59, 61, 79, 94, 154, 159, 164, 167, 168, 170 Howe, G. 122 Hu Yaobang 117 human rights 113, 117, 122, 124, 128, 165 Hungary 33, 37, 82, 132, 204; civil-military relations 63; defence spending 99; domestic factors 210; enterprise autonomy 26; financial management 34; foreign direct investment 44, 45; foreign policy ideology 210, 215; foreign trade 51; import-substitution 21; interdependence 202; joint stock companies 45; joint ventures 44; national security 188; political reform 118, 133; relationship to Soviet Union 11; religion 149; source of reform ideas 38; tourism and emigration 156 Hyde-Price, A. 111, 175

IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) 97 ideology 6, 8; definition 175; in East Asia 177; in East Europe 177; foreign policy 175; interpretation 175; legitimation strategy 177; and orthodoxy 175 IMF (International Monetary Fund) 23, 46, 56, 203 India 92, 97, 108 INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) talks 43, 61, 104, 192 inflation 40, 46 Iran 98 Iraq 13, 84, 92, 96, 98, 104 Islam, see religion Israel 97, 111, 167, 171 Italy, Rome 151 Japan 2, 4, 14, 34, 37, 38, 42, 44, 48, 51, 70, 108, 112, 132, 141, 153, 159, 180, 186, 208, 212 Jiang Chunze 33 Jiang Zemin 32, 169 John-Paul II, Pope 148, 152 joint ventures 138, 140; China 40, 48; Hungary 44; Soviet Union 37, 41; Vietnam 39, 43 Juche 204 Kadar, J. 118, 149, 177, 188, 202, 211 Kafka, F. 143 Khrushchev, N. 63, 84, 113, 116, 119, 179, 182, 188, 196 Kim Il Sung 12, 97 Kissinger, H.A. 185 Korea, South 37, 42, 45, 48, 51, 97, 159 Kosygin, A. 23, 120 Krug, B. 22 Kuwait 13, 94, 96, 98, 162

INDEX 249

Laos 91 Le Duc Anh 67 legal systems 19, 35, 44, 118, 124, 171 Lekai, Cardinal 150 Lengyel, J. 119 Lenin, V.I. 40, 147, 175, 178, 181, 194, 216 Lewis, P. vii Li Peng 169 Li Xiannian 36 Liebknecht, K. 142 Ligachev,Y. 126 Light, M. 175 Lin Biao 186 Lon Nol 185 Luther, M. 142 Macau 154, 170 Mai Chi Tho 124 Malaysia 159 Mao Zedong 62, 64, 117, 130, 178, 180, 185, 200, 208 Marcuse, H. 138 Markus, M. 177 Marx, K. 178, 216 media, reform of 125 military, see armed forces; defence policy Mindszenty, Cardinal 149 Mohammed Saliq Mamaiusupov 148 Moldavia 29 Mongolia 67, 172 Morison, J. 137 Mozambique 183 Müntzer, T. 142 Murdoch, R. 134 music 140, 144 Mutual Balanced Forces Reduction (MBFR) 99 Nagy, I. 189, 191 Namibia 95, 97 national interest, defined 61 national security 181; see also defence policy nationalism 164, 168 NATO 13, 86, 89, 106, 114, 116, 191, 215

Nguyen Huy Thiep 145 Nguyen Luu 145 Nguyen Minh Nhat 151 Nguyen Van Linh 124, 136, 145, 151 Nguyen Van Sang 151 Nguyen Xuan Oanh 202 Nicaragua 95, 183 Nietzsche, F.W. 143 Nixon, R. 104, 185 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) 104 Nove, A. 38 nuclear weapons 84, 90, 103, 114, 181, 192; damage limitation 192; doctrine of deterrence 103 Obminsky, E. 50 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 2, 22, 49, 50, 52 Orwell, G. 131 pacifism 149 Pakistan 97 Partial Test Ban (PTB) 104 Pavlov, A. 71 peace movement 211 peaceful coexistence 193, 197, 205 peaceful settlement of disputes 94 People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (PDRK) 11; arms control 99; arms transfers 91; civil-military relations 63; defence spending 68; foreign direct investment 45; foreign trade 52; front-line state 11; nuclear weapons 105; relationship with China 12; unreformed 204 Pimen, Patriarch 147 Poland 21, 33, 37, 46, 47, 52, 57, 107, 113, 118, 121, 149, 193, 203, 215 political prisoners 115, 124 Pozsgay, I. 120 press 126, 129, 133, 136, 144

250 INDEX

Primakov, Y. 208 privatization, range of meanings 37 professionalism 5, 23, 63, 65, 76, 80; defined 80 publishing 130, 138 Rajik, L. 121 Rakosi, F. 189 Reagan, R. 114, 148, 183, 213 regionalism 9, 27, 78; see also decentralization religion 143, 170 Reschetov, Y. 167 Romania 33, 37, 57, 190 Rozman, G. 37 Russian Federation 30 Rust, M. 161 Sakharov, Y. 114 SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) 63, 64 Saudi Arabia 29, 170; Mecca 148, 171 Shatrov, M. 144 Shevardnadze, E. 55, 77, 96, 102, 111, 114, 194, 207 Sihanouk, N. 185 Singapore 44, 139 Sino-Soviet relations 184, 209 socialist internationalism 198, 209 Solzhenitsyn, A.I. 119 South Africa 111 South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone treaty 104 Soviet Union: Afghanistan war 64, 74, 88, 183, 187; armed forces 63, 74, 81; Armenia 42, 74, 127; Azerbaijan 50, 127, 138; Baku 127, 168; Baltic Republics 28, 74, 79, 126; banking sector 43; Caucasus 74, 79; Central Asia 29, 80, 126, 148; Crimea 42; culture 137; currency 46;

decentralization 23, 27, 56, 79; decision-making 77; defence industry 70; defence policy 9, 74, 92, 95, 99, 105, 182; defence spending 67; diversity of reforms 28, 30; domestic factors 206; environmental movement 24; Estonia 74, 127, 173; as example 8; foreign economic policy 9, 23, 41, 49; foreign policy ideology 206, 212; GATT and IMF membership 55; Georgia 74, 127; human rights 165; interdependence 195; joint ventures 41, 138; Kaliningrad 42; Kazakhstan 29, 148; Latvia 127; Leningrad 42, 126; Lithuania 74, 127; Maritime Territory 42; media 126; Moldavia 29; Moscow 47, 49, 56, 79, 87, 95, 126, 138, 165, 168, 215; Nagorny Karabak 138; Nakhodka 42; political reform 113, 160; primary products 54; relations with EC 55; religion 147; revolutionary transformation 54; Russian Federation 29, 42; Siberia 50; source of reform ideas 37; Special Economic Zones 30, 42; the Spratlys 61, 84, 89, 108; summary 8; tourism and emigration 152, 167; uncertainty 31; Vladivostok 188; Vyborg 42; Western Ukraine 127, 148;

INDEX 251

withdrawal from Eastern Europe 88, 101 sports 139, 142 Stalin, J. 32, 144, 175, 218 START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) talks 61, 77, 104, 106 states, typology of 3 Stern, I. 140 Strougal, L. 36 Sweden 4, 37 Switzerland 98 Szuros, M. 190 Taiwan 27, 27, 34, 49, 51, 56, 61, 79, 154, 164, 170 Tarkovsky, A. 138 technology, imported 206 telecommunications 128, 133 Thailand 139, 159 Thalmann, E. 142 Thatcher, M.H. 127 theory following practice 175, 178, 218 Third World 179, 182, 195, 200; end of 13 Tibet 27, 61, 79, 154, 168 Tolz, V. 127 tourism 152, 163, 167 trade unions 115 Turkey 203 UAE (United Arab Emirates) 139 Ulbricht, W. 143 United Kingdom 2, 4, 43, 93, 105, 111, 127, 139, 166 United Nations 13, 62, 93, 94, 97, 108, 162, 186, 197; Disarmament Committee 104; General Assembly 165; peace-keeping operations 97; Security Council 15, 96, 97 United States 10, 13, 38, 44, 46, 48, 57, 59, 67, 87, 93, 95, 105, 117, 128, 132, 141, 153, 159, 167, 180, 185, 192, 200, 210, 213, 214; Los Angeles 111 urban reform problems 34

Vietnam 15, 32; Association of Rice Exporters 26; banking system 44; Cambodian conflict 15, 87, 95; civil-military relations 63, 64; culture 144; currency 46; decision-making 78; defence policy 10, 73, 91, 94, 99, 187; defence procurement 71; defence spending 67; domestic factors 207; education 145; foreign economic policy 10, 43, 51; foreign policy ideology 208, 214; Hanoi 71, 92, 124, 151, 159; Ho Chi Minh City 31, 124, 137, 158; interdependence 202; joint ventures 43; legal system 44, 124; old ties to capitalist world 30; overseas community 44; political reform 123, 136, 160; religion 151; source of reform ideas 38; tourism and emigration 158, 167; Saigon 137; Zone of Fabrication 44 Von Bulow, A. 38 Wang Meng 131 Warsaw Pact 106, 192, 215 Williams, M.C. 111 Windelen, H. 142 Womack, B. 175 World Bank 22, 23, 49, 56, 203 Wu Xuequian 34, 171 Xu Xiangqian 186 Xuan Trieu 145 Yakovlev, A. 43, 126, 161, 208 Yugoslavia 13, 33, 46, 102 Zhang Zidong 201 Zhao Ziyang 34, 35, 200 Zhivkov, T. 36 Zhou Enlai 185, 208

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